Evidence of meeting #133 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was species.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
My questions probably will be for Martin—if I can refer to you as “Martin”.
Basically it's perception versus reality. The perception in Prince Edward Island among fishers is that there has been an explosive growth in the biomass of striped bass, which has the potential to negatively impact the lobster fishery.
Martin, you're a biologist. Is that reality or perception?
Executive Director, Maritime Fishermen's Union
It is perception, Robert.
We've been waiting for some DFO data on that fact to try to dispel these myths. In the last few years, studies have looked at the stomach contents of striped bass. As I mentioned earlier, they are an opportunistic species; they can eat pretty much anything they can wrap their mouths around, and they've got pretty big mouths.
Depending on where they are and the timing of the season, if there are smelt around, they're going to eat smelt. If there are green crabs around, they're going to eat green crabs, which is an invasive species. In terms of lobsters and the gut content of the species, they're really minimal. I've fished bass myself with a few lobsters in their stomach, but they were a minority.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
You have an extensive background in lobster, in rejuvenating stocks of lobster as well. For the record, you say to the lobster fisher that there are no alarming statistics on the striped bass as a predator of lobster larvae.
Executive Director, Maritime Fishermen's Union
No.
Our main focus in the past 15 years in doing research on lobster settlement.... On PEI they're using these settlement index traps and in New Brunswick they're using scuba diving to settle sites for lobster. We've never seen a decrease in lobster settlement throughout this period. It's increasing as we speak. There are still more lobsters settling on the bottom than we've ever seen. There's no correlation.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
Would either one of you gentlemen recommend a commercial fishery for striped bass?
Executive Director, Maritime Fishermen's Union
In my case, if we had not seen a decrease in the striped bass population like the one we've seen in the past two years, I would probably say that we could start experimenting with a commercial fishery. With the numbers we're seeing—around the 300,000 units level—and with the stability of the stock not being certain, I would not recommend a commercial fishery.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
Mr. Wilson, you commented that the species is not invasive. You also said that the species is susceptible to large fluctuations. Could you elaborate a bit on what drives the large fluctuation?
Co-host and Founder, Miramichi Striper Cup
Bass gets a name as invasive because of other brown bass and those sorts of fish that were introduced in the province of New Brunswick. I want to clarify that it was a natural species that's existed there for over a thousand years, as long as salmon have. It is, however, the most northern population of that species in North America. As such, it's always going to be more susceptible to water temperature fluctuations. When you consider there are 35 million bass anglers in the northeast United States.... They chase striped bass on the northeast coast of the United States. It's a passion.
My recommendation to the city and the province is that we start to let them know what we have here in the recreational fishery. We've had them come. I've had people tell me its ridiculous. Yet we have to remember that those bass only come to the Miramichi for three weeks and then they're gone. They're back out in the ocean. It's a window; it's only a window.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
Would you recommend controlling it through a recreational sport fishery?
Co-host and Founder, Miramichi Striper Cup
I think that gives the population the best bang for its buck on a God-given resource. Absolutely.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
Just out of curiosity, Mr. Wilson: You referenced a particular water temperature in which a salmon, if it swam 100 feet, would die.
Co-host and Founder, Miramichi Striper Cup
In the USB I provided to the members, there's an acute temperature tolerance level study presented by DFO. The information is in there. It's a five-year study done by DFO on the Miramichi.
You probably remember that last year, the water was shut down to all fishing for 57 days. I believe it was 61 the year before, but it shows a five-year temperature that.... Salmon can only survive in a deep cold water pool. If you caught that fish for even two minutes—
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
In your opinion, what has had the most negative impact on the salmon stock? Is it climate change or predatory species?
Co-host and Founder, Miramichi Striper Cup
By far, it's climate change.
It's climate change, hands-down. It's not even a fight.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
A lot of people would view it as predatory species, such as seals. We've heard all kinds of—
Co-host and Founder, Miramichi Striper Cup
Listen, humans want scapegoats. We look for a scapegoat. We want an answer, and when the answer is cloudy, it's not the right answer.
When I go fishing, I fish stuff that people can't see. I do really well at it, but if you can see it, you'll fish it. It's the stuff we can't see that haunts us the most, and that's the same thing with climate change. It's the bogeyman, but you can't argue with data. DFO has the water temperature. The striped bass, as Mr. Mallet said, took advantage of some good conditions back in 2009. That young-of-the-year class has now gone through a population boom—
Co-host and Founder, Miramichi Striper Cup
Last year's spawning was terrible. The water was high, it was cold and it was too fast. Seven years from now, when we go to talk about spawning fish, we're going to say, “What happened?”
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
So with all of these great striped bass that I'm seeing in P.E.I. waters, near where people are fishing, this is not going to be a trend they should get used to.
Co-host and Founder, Miramichi Striper Cup
Well, if we protect the size of the school we have now, I think it's sustainable recreationally in the Dungarvon River and all the areas in P.E.I.
I have a lot of friends in P.E.I. who come to the Striper Cup. They're over there fishing striped bass right now. You'll probably see a huge recreational fishery there, but if we let it go less, they won't travel that far.
Liberal
Mr. Ken McDonald (Avalon, Lib.)
Now we'll go to the Conservative side and Mr. Arnold, for five minutes or less, please.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, both, for appearing today.
It's interesting. You obviously have a very in-depth background on the species. It was interesting to hear about the spawning, and how it's successful or not successful.
One of the things that we sometimes see in this committee is a delayed or slow response to changes. It sounds like striped bass are very susceptible to big swings in population numbers, spawning, escapement numbers and so on. How much anecdotal information is there from fishermen, and how much of that information is taken and accepted by fisheries management, whether it's provincial or DFO?
I'll let both of you answer that briefly, if you could.
Executive Director, Maritime Fishermen's Union
Sure.
A big part of the information comes from our fishermen. It is verified in the sense that they do open up some of the fish they catch in their traps to see what they're eating. The most important predator for lobster, for instance, is actually the sculpin. It's a bottom-dwelling critter that is a stalker. When a lobster goes right in front of it, it's going to gulp it up.
On the striped bass side of things, we've heard all kinds of stories going around. We've seen all kinds of things on Facebook where you have some fishermen showing two or three lobsters in the mouth of a striped bass. Is this something that was planted there, or was it the real thing?
I've seen it myself. I've seen bass eat lobster, but like I mentioned earlier, the studies have shown that it's just part of the diet of striped bass. It's not targeting lobster and it's not targeting smelt. It is a multi-species predator, so if there's a smelt that runs in the way of a striped bass, it's going to eat the smelt.
From our point of view, our main concern would be for smelt and gaspereau.