Thank you, first of all.
Just as a little background, I've been a 30-year competitive bass angler and an avid promoter and organizer of bass events in the Maritimes, promoting the benefits of such in the recreational fishery and what they bring to the region.
I also sit as a member of the eastern advisory committee for DFO. I've spent a fair amount of time studying the science and watching the return of the natural striped bass population.
It's important to add context to this study. This fish is not an invasive species of any nature. There is historical evidence of a commercial fishery harvest of 10 tonnes to 47 tonnes per year of striped bass, so there's a lot of misinformation in the media and other organizations about that.
The first thing for me was to bring the recreational opportunity, which is far larger an economic boom to the province of New Brunswick than any commercial fishery ever will be. This population is the most northern population and is susceptible to huge natural fluctuations like those we saw last year. This happened in 1996 as well, and it happened in the forties and also in 1913. We just saw the exact same thing happen in New Jersey last year where two-thirds of the population disappeared. It's really a capacity issue relative to the alewife, smelt and those sorts of things as food sources to all fish in the river system and in the ocean.
From my point of view and that of the Striper Cup, I'm going to provide a lot of information. The economic impact in six days in one spring is about $3.8 million recreationally. We'd certainly like to see a commissioned economic study on the gulf fishery—the complete gulf fishery from Labrador and Quebec all the way to P.E.I. and Cape Breton. We've seen a huge increase, an explosion in recreational fisheries for families and kids. In the Striper Cup alone, we have 350 kids. We have a family division. This has created a huge boon for the population, not for commercial but for recreational.
I had brought my worry to the eastern advisory board last year, saying that we would see a decrease in the population, and similar to 1995, in one year we lost over two-thirds of the population, the same as we did last year. If we lose two-thirds this year, then we're again down to an endangered species level. The key here is to maintain a school level at a level of about 300,000 to 350,000, so it can absorb a natural phenomenon, and then also have some recreational return as well to the population.
Recognizing the indigenous rights to first access, we suggested that they reduce that to drive the price and margin up—limited effort and a higher volume of return on investment. The sustainability or the scaling up of a commercial fishery to the numbers would make it viable. This population will never sustain that over a long period of time. Like any good marketing person, you increase the demand and increase the price by limiting the access to the actual product. That will give you sustainability over time.
We have a lot of groups, including the striped bass research team at Acadia University, which has worked with us and the University of New Brunswick. I've provided on my USB stick a number of diet studies that actually prove that the species is not having an impact on the salmon any more than it has before and that it's less than 2%. We have a lot of other factors that have to be taken into consideration, including the fact that a lot of biologists will always say that you never manage one over another.
I'm here. I've given some points of interest for the members. I'm happy to take questions. I tried to keep my comments under seven minutes, but I'm available any time.
If I can, Mr. Chair, at any time, I certainly want to get a picture of our Striper Cup jersey here with all the members. We have about 42,000 followers online, and I'm sure everybody would enjoy seeing a nice picture of the members all looking after our fishery here in Ottawa.