Fisheries Committee on May 10th, 2016

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

I do, yes, with Mr. Finnigan, if you'll have it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Done. You have three and a half minutes.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you very much.

I'm looking at the graph on page seven, and it seems that there were some pretty wild swings in the abundance of salmon up until about 1991-92, when there was no bounce. Do we know anything about what may have happened there?

[Gérald Chaput]

It is a compelling picture that there were oscillations up until about the early 1990s, and something changed. We've looked at that in various fora with national scientists and we can point to that period in the late 1980s and early 1990s as almost like a regime shift. Something changed in the ocean. Something changed in the whole dynamic. After that time period, salmon never recovered.

You can see some comparative examples of that in looking at zooplankton. There are some indicators, when people look at zooplankton in the ocean in that same time period in the late 1980s and early 1990s, that there was a change in zooplankton variables as well. It seems that something changed in the ocean; something triggered it. Early 1990s was a cold period off eastern Canada. There was a very cold period of water. People felt that might have contributed to some declines in Atlantic cod as well. Something happened in the early 1990s. Conditions shifted back, but Atlantic salmon abundance did not shift back. You're right, there is a period that changed there, and we've seen it in other parameters that we've monitored in the ocean as well.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Being from the west coast, of course, I try to be a little more familiar with conditions there. Notwithstanding all of the issues that we've had with the Fraser River runs, there is an anomaly there. The Harrison run always seems to be much more abundant that the others. Are there similar things happening on the east coast? Are there some rivers that just seem to, for some reason, outperform others?

[Gérald Chaput]

If you look at the northern rivers, the Labrador rivers, the northern Newfoundland rivers, you probably won't see that dramatic fluctuation in abundance. Western Arm Brook is a small river on the northern peninsula of Newfoundland. It's been monitored since the early 1970s, and it's been tracking long. The big change happened when we closed the commercial fishery. All of a sudden the fish are returning to Western Arm Brook in higher numbers, and they've been maintaining higher numbers. So those northern populations seem to have been less affected by these shifts of ocean conditions over the last 40 years than we've seen in the southern populations.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

We mentioned the issue with Greenland and especially the taking of large salmon, which seemed to have been the focus from the seventies to the early nineties, and then things dropped off. I also recall when cod was certainly under stress, that we had some issues with Portugal and Spain. Are there other players out there that we can look at as perhaps responsible for some of that ocean mortality?

[Gérald Chaput]

Probably Kevin could speak to that in terms of international surveillance in the North Atlantic. There is quite a bit of international collaboration in licensing vessels, monitoring vessels, looking at landings in different ports in Europe, for example. There is no evidence from the European Union on landings of Atlantic salmon showing up in ports in different locations. And we know from vessels out in the North Atlantic that as the cod fishery collapsed, fewer vessels were out there fishing. It still could be the case. Kevin?

[Kevin Stringer]

We have NASCO, the international organization that looks after North Atlantic salmon, and all the major players are there. We do exchange information. We've got a pretty good sense of where the catches are. Greenland is an issue. Saint Pierre and Miquelon is a very small issue, one to five tonnes. It's not from there, it's being intercepted. Those are the two we see.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you.

Mr. Finnigan, you have three and a half minutes.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Very well.

I want to ask this question; I'm not sure if I'll have the time, but I want to make sure I have it answered.

We are planning a trip to Miramichi. It looks as if it's going to be this fall, and hopefully we will be meeting with the first nations; we'll be meeting with the outfitters; we'll be visiting the hatchery; we'll be talking to a scientist and people along the river. Is there anything you might recommend that we pay particular attention to as we visit the Miramichi River? I leave that to anybody who would like to take that on.

[Gérald Chaput]

I hope you enjoy your trip.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

I'm sure we will.

[Gérald Chaput]

There's so much to see there as you know from being from the area. There's also a lot of activity both by non-government organizations and provincial governments. There are all kinds of activities related to protections. Protection barriers are operated by the province where salmon are protected in heavy waters when they come up. There are cold water refugia programs, restoration programs. A number of programs are looking at trying to assess returns. There are first nations collaborations.

I think the most interesting aspects are related to habitat. We keep talking about habitat because we shouldn't think that freshwater habitat and ocean habitat are independent. Fish that grow in the fresh water, if they have healthy environments probably are healthier smolts. Healthier smolts going to sea probably have better survival rates than fish that are unhealthy.

We can speak to the freshwater habitat being very important not just in producing smolts but producing healthy smolts. Examples of that are in the southern uplands of Nova Scotia. Fish can grow in acid-stressed rivers, but the smolts that go to sea are not as healthy. The survival rates are not as good.

We keep talking about freshwater habitat being important, but it's more than just producing fish, it's producing healthy fish. And we shouldn't think that the two are not linked, so I think a lot of activity in Miramichi that groups are doing focus on habitat. Those are key projects.

[Kevin Stringer]

A lot of local groups working along the river have neat little projects: a fish wheel, a little habitat program; many little programs partner with the department throughout the fishing season. And those are really worth seeing. The department does important work, but stakeholders, watershed groups, particularly along the Miramichi do enormously important work, and it would be nice to see that as well.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Getting back to the CAST issue and the small salmon developing bad habits, I guess, if you could put it that way, when they get lazy and all that, I don't understand how, if they die, that would rub off on the healthy salmon. How does that affect the stock? If it doesn't work, the worst that can happen is they will die prematurely because their instinct is domesticated, if we could say that.

How does that affect it? In other words, I don't understand why there would be a danger.

[Gérald Chaput]

There is a concern we have. When a salmon goes to sea, there's a big selection happening. Let's not kid ourselves. A lot of fish are dying, for a number of reasons, but it's not random. The fish that are coming back are the ones that have the right package to survive the conditions. They'll come back, spawn, and potentially pass that on to their progeny.

If you take the smolts and exclude the freshwater-and-marine cycle, a lot of them survive. All kinds of fish survive: the fish that have the right characteristics. Fish that would have the wrong characteristics survive in the ocean, but they survive, and they will spawn. That's what we want them to do. We want to raise them to adults, release them back to the river, and let them spawn.

We probably have fish that don't quite have the right fitness, but they are all spawning in the river. When they spawn in the river, they have juveniles, and juveniles will fight for space. There's only so much space in the river. They will compete with each other, and some die from that. We have a lot of unfit juveniles from less fit parents that are competing with fit wild juveniles, and some are dying, so then we have effects on the wild fish as well.

It's that issue about how the ocean is filtering the fish and letting the ones that have the right package come back and spawn, but by cutting out the ocean, we're putting fish back in that have all kinds of characteristics, and probably not necessarily all the ones we need for ocean survival of the next generation. That's the issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Sopuck, please, for seven minutes.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

My view, though, is that the research you're contemplating doing should generate real management outcomes. You talk about doing open ocean research on temperature, acidity, and so on. Let's say you find out about those factors in the ocean. Are you going to be able to do anything about it? The answer is no, isn't it?

[Gérald Chaput]

Perhaps it depends on where they are dying, right? One of the questions we have is that fish leave the river, then adults come back, and somewhere out there, from the estuary through the bay, they die.

There is tracking work that was started by the Atlantic Salmon Federation, which we're trying to promote, to tell us exactly where they are dying. For example, are they all dying in Miramichi Bay in the stomachs of striped bass? Are they all being eaten by striped bass? If we knew that 90% of the smolts were being eaten by striped bass, that would probably be a place to take action.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

I'm making a very strong distinction, though, between studying ocean chemistry, ocean currents, and ocean temperature, or looking at, for example, survival rate of smolts due to predation.

On the first type of scientific work—ocean temperatures, acidity, and so on—you may find out something about that, but there's nothing we can do about it, right? If we find out that it's striped bass, we can do something about that. I think there's every indication that predation is one of the reasons for the decline in the Atlantic salmon. It's quite clear that it is a major reason.

We can do something about that. We do it all the time. We manage human predators all the time. The department thinks nothing about managing salmon predators that walk on two legs, but somehow there is an extreme reluctance to do the same thing with, for example, a fish like the striped bass, which have gone from some 25,000 fish up to 250,000 fish. They hang at the mouth of the Miramichi, yet there's an extreme reluctance to manage striped bass in such a way.

You could actually run an experiment. Let the anglers take 10 fish each. You can do a stomach analysis of the angled catch. The anglers would be very happy to do that.

This reluctance by the department and biologists to be seen to actually actively manage a resource as opposed to studying it forever baffles me. Could you address that question? Why won't we see some action in this regard?

[Trevor Swerdfager]

I guess there are a couple of ways to come at this question.

The first is that you can't manage what you don't understand. Really, a big part of what we're trying to do is understand what's happening to these animals when they leave.

There are some people who argue very strongly—you would be perhaps one of them—that the main reason for the decline is striped bass. That's one argument. Another is that there are conditions that are happening out there.

I take your point. The whole idea of science—at least it's done in the department, as opposed to outside it—is to generate a management response. A big part of what we anticipate coming out of some of our research is a set of recommendations to managers for a whole variety of things. The fact of the matter is that we don't know what those recommendations will be yet, because we don't know what the scientists are finding.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

There's an old saying that perfect is the envy of good, and the search for perfection often prevents us from doing. Experimental management, adaptive management, is not a bad thing, so you institute a management plan for a fish or wildlife resource and you see how it works, and then you adapt over time. On the Miramichi, I don't live there, but from what I gather folks are frustrated. There are not enough salmon to catch, yet there is this monstrous striped bass resource and it is a built-in experiment ready for the department to do. The reluctance to do this baffles me, when I think the people of the region would really appreciate that.

There is an old saying, “Do what you can with what you have where you are”, and there is a clear case here where you could actually do something. Let's suppose it fails. Let say it shows that striped bass aren't the predators that people think they are. Well, so what? Let's say you've knocked the population back from 250,000 fish to 150,000 fish. So what? They were 25,000 at one point, so again, explain to me why you are so reluctant to enter into active management of the predator species.

[Kevin Stringer]

I'll start on striped bass. We did actually expand it last year, and we expanded it at a time when the biomass went down, so we still don't know where this particular biomass of striped bass is going to land. There is a fair amount of uncertainty of how much there is, and not as much science as we would like about it. I wish I had the numbers with me in terms of what the biomass was, but it went down significantly and we still expanded the fishery, largely for the reasons that you talked about. We actually have addressed that, but we did it for two years. That decision was taken last year, and there was not a decision this year because it was a two-year decision, and we'll take another decision coming forward.

Gérald, correct me if I'm wrong here, but in terms of the reductions that we're seeing and the concerns that we saw in 2014—and 2014 was a worrying year for salmon in Atlantic Canada, on the Miramichi and elsewhere—the reductions that we saw on the Miramichi were about the same as the reductions we saw on other rivers in the same area, which did not have striped bass. We have done some stomach samples. No one is saying that striped bass aren't eating smolts, but it's a very short period of time when they're in the river together.

We are actually looking at it, and certainly we have the recommendation from the committee, but there are a number of things that go into those decisions. There was fairly recently a special concern. The biomass did decrease from 2013 to 2014, at least the estimate....

Gérald wants to comment.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Can I make one point? I only have 30 seconds left.

Regarding the Greenland catch—this point is more for the government members here. Again, you will recall what happened with the turbot and so on, way back, and I think it is time for the government to do the same, to contemplate something fairly serious with Greenland, simply because Greenland doesn't produce a single fish. They hardly produce any Atlantic salmon. Those are North American fish, so they have no interest at all in the conservation of Atlantic salmon stocks. They simply take the fish. I think there is a kind of moral argument here that we need to put a lot of pressure on Greenland to say ”You hardly produce any fish, yet you're harvesting the most valuable Canadian and North American Atlantic salmon there are, and we need to do something about it”.