I'll address three points.
The first point is the diet study. The Atlantic Salmon Federation did one. It's at 2% to 18% on 100 smolt released in the Northwest Miramichi. The DFO study was of 1,800 fish randomly selected through handling, with the actual stomach-content DNA analyzed, versus predatory analysis, in which the tagged fish looked like it was a striped bass when it got tagged. I'll just address that.
Second of all, when you talk about the economic benefits, the study of the Atlantic salmon was conducted a number of years ago. That's why I've asked for what I believe would be a prudent approach—to take a proper look at the recreational fishery of striped bass across the whole gulf so that we get the proper value of that fishery and can consider both species equally. Please don't get me wrong, I was an avid salmon fisherman for 30 years.
When we go into the salmon fishery, we do have an extremely difficult challenge, given that for 57 days last year, the temperature of the Miramichi was actually acute for salmon; if a salmon swam 100 yards, it would die. We had 61 days of that the year before. Over the last five years, the mean water temperature in the river was up to that level more than 40 days a year. We really have a water temperature issue for the salmon, which is another challenge for you folks to ponder. Also, in the spring, we have high flow in a very short period of time, and then an acute start to the summer. We've lost our spring. That has a tremendous effect on the fish.
There is no correlation between diet and the return of a large salmon population. Having bought out the Greenland commercial fishery, we'll certainly see some return to that, I think. When you look at the rivers in Labrador and Newfoundland and see the same decline of salmon there without any striped bass predation, it is a concern. It is a challenge, as you've mentioned. Atlantic salmon is one of the flagships of New Brunswick. I was fortunate to have a chance to fish that when it was in its prime.