Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My focus has been more on the west coast, because that is where I am from, but the stories are about the same. When we look at the issue with the Fraser River sockeye, the smolts run the gauntlet past aquaculture and out into the deep water, and then things happen in the ocean. There are definitely concerns about the number and quality of fish coming back. I guess some of the questions will be common to both coasts.
Notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Sopuck has blown his chances for a Christmas card from the striped bass, the data seem to suggest there are a lot more of them out there. There seem to be a lot more seals, and Ms. Nodding was commenting on other predatory species around her area.
Why is this so? If the salmon population is falling, you would think that at some point there is going to be a tipping point, and the predators themselves would start dying off. Is that not the case?