Fisheries Committee on Feb. 25th, 2019

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

I had the honour of fishing that fishery last May. I was there for about three days. It truly is remarkable. I forget their first names, but the Curtis family were talking about the incredible smelt runs that used to be on the Miramichi. They don't see them anymore. That's an epic failure of an ecosystem, isn't it?

[Jeff Wilson]

Yes, it is. You're absolutely correct. The way the salmon parr work is that when they are coming down the river, the smelt and the alewives are the smokescreens that Mother Nature put in place.

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

Yes. When you describe the cycles of the striped bass, do you think it was food supply that did it? When I saw the predation of the smelt with my own eyes—the phenomenal number of smelt they must eat—plus the Curtis family's observations of no smelt, I thought we're probably looking at another crash of the striped bass, no matter what we do.

[Jeff Wilson]

I think we have to be very mindful of that. History and the data have shown that this can happen. As Mr. Mallet said, the bass come into the river to winter under the ice. They can actually freeze in the salt water when they swim, so any fish will colonize. That's what we really have to think about. They have not yet colonized the Richibucto, the Bouctouche or the Kouchibouguac—the rivers of those areas.

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

I want to make one last point.

You exemplify, Mr. Wilson, the incredible knowledge of the recreational fisherman in Canada. You represent a true environmentalist, in my view, and more is the pity that we don't listen to the hunting and angling community as much as we should, given the example you just gave at this committee of your incredible knowledge of the Miramichi.

Thank you for your testimony.

[Jeff Wilson]

Thank you, sir.

[The Chair]

Thank you, Mr. Sopuck. You were almost dead on with your time. You haven't lost your touch.

Now we go to the NDP. Mr. Donnelly, you may speak for seven minutes or less.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to both of our witnesses for being here.

Mr. Wilson, I wanted to continue with the line of questions Mr. Sopuck started. Regarding the diet studies you referenced, can you remind the committee, was it the university, DFO or—who did those studies?

[Jeff Wilson]

The original diet study was done by DFO over about a four to five-year period. This is all by memory. I was actually on the river when they came over to me, because I was catching fish and they weren't, and they asked me to randomly sample 40 quickly caught fish. So, that was actually a catch, kill and dissect the stomach.

In the Striper Cup, I have Acadia University there and two Ph.D.'s in striper research, Dr. Avery and Dr. Easy. Any of the fish that die... We have a live release tournament. Everything we catch, we let go. We had a 17 year one, and seven year two and four last year. They take the inner ear, cut it like a tree, and can tell where the fish has lived, what it's eaten, like the rings of a tree. That's a university-backed one.

Currently, right now, Sam Andrews, a Ph.D. student at UNB, has just completed another diet study, which is public. His paper is available for publishing right now; it's being peer reviewed. Those are the only three interactions ones, the ASF, the DFO one and now Sam Andrews'.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Is this contentious in any way, would you say, or is there pretty much agreement in the community?

[Jeff Wilson]

I think that, as with any study, when there's a margin of error of 2% to 18%, the people who want to kill the bass say it's 18% and the people who want to save the bass say it's 2%. But big fish eat little fish. If you wanted to do a study on brook trout, you'd find 100% of their stomach contents are salmon parr in the Miramichi, and we're not here talking about getting rid of all the brook trout.

Big fish eat little fish. If we keep taking the little fish out of the ocean, we're not going to have any big fish. That's just nature.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

So in your opinion, this is not a major or significant concern.

[Jeff Wilson]

I think that the major concern we have is the smelt runs and the alewife runs and those sorts of things that feed all the major harvestable fish, the bluefin tuna, the cod, the salmon. We really need to work at that. History proves that if you harvest a fish during its spawning cycle, you will destroy that fish. It's happened.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Yes. You're talking about an ecosystem approach.

[Jeff Wilson]

Yes, I am. Absolutely.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

In terms of management—and just, again, by way of further comment—I think you've basically answered this one, but how do you think DFO should better manage the striped bass? Are we talking harvest levels, then, just to...?

[Jeff Wilson]

Again, I think they should recognize first nations' first right; they have to have a reasonable number. I think the recreational fishery needs to be reduced to one per day. I would eliminate.... I would go all hook and release during the spawn. It's fishing in a barrel, and it's fun and it's good, but if we can release them....

Then, the final thing is that where I see a lot of fish being hurt is with bait fish, with mackerel on the circle hook. When you use bait, it's very difficult for the fisherman to release the fish because the bait is so far down the throat. You're you're letting the fish go but he's dying because you hooked him so deep. A recreational fishery in the river should be with artificial bait only, I believe.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

That's helpful.

You said one of the main issues was that we have an acute water temperature problem, which could also be a water level problem. I wanted to ask about that. What do you think is causing the temperature problem?

[Jeff Wilson]

I'm not a scientist. I'm just reading DFO reports that talked about the temperature level. At the eastern recreational fisheries advisory committee, we were presented with that, and it shows that water temperature.... I think we as a human being race across the country all have our opinions on what is causing climate change, but we can't deny that climate change is happening. If we could wave a wand today and stop everything we are doing, it would take 15 to 20 years for that to return.

We need to figure out how to manage that over the next 20 years. Part of that is the God-given gift that we have right now and managing that so we have something for our kids 20 years from now.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

I'm way over on the west coast and focus on the Fraser River, which is an amazing river like the Miramichi, but on the Miramichi is there a water withdrawal issue at all? Is there anything that's impacting levels?

[Jeff Wilson]

The problem that we have is during heavy rainfall. If we don't have the proper canopy cover, then the rain gets into the system too fast. Generally, the problem we have now is the huge water fluctuation based on heavy rains, and then, as I was saying earlier about the turbulence in the water, it turns chocolate brown.

We know that striped bass will go 10 kilometres downstream and leave. Striped bass are different from most fish. They drop their eggs, the eggs are fertilized, and they need to have a specific miles-per-hour water of 2.3 miles an hour for 48 hours in order to hatch. They don't go down into the gravel. If they go into the gravel, they die. Water flow and temperature, for those three days, around the 25th of May, is absolutely critical. Last year, we had a huge flood in May. As you know, in New Brunswick we had all kinds of flooding. It's going to be the same issue in B.C. if we take the canopy grow around the streams and the cold water streams and we let that happen.... I'm a big believer in selective harvest in everything we do.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

If you're recommending or wanting an economic study—a broader study than I think the committee here is looking at—and this committee were to recommend that DFO go forward with such as study, would you see it as complementary, the kind of economic study you're calling for?

[Jeff Wilson]

I work with the City of Miramichi and the Province of New Brunswick. I'm meeting Minister Holland and Premier Higgs in a couple of weeks. I'm a believer in data. If the economic fishery...if we put a proper value on the species so that it's treated equally—if that is the case, and intuitively I would say it is—then our management style needs to be adjusted to reflect that value to the citizens of the country.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

I think I might have another question in the second round for Mr. Mallet.

[The Chair]

Now to the government side and Mr. Morrissey for seven minutes or less, please.