Fisheries Committee on June 5th, 2019

[Robert Bison]

We have an ongoing monitoring program that's financed through sport fishing licensing sales primarily. Otherwise, there have been other monies, but I couldn't provide that number for you.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Okay.

There was a suggestion—and I appreciate Mr. Bech talking about the economic benefits of closure in the long-term economic game. Has there been discussion within the ministries and the department of a socio-economic impact study to look at that?

[Rebecca Reid]

Is that question for me?

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Yes, I'll start there.

[Rebecca Reid]

We have done a socio-economic analysis as part of the listing process, and so we do have information available on that piece.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Okay.

Is there a role that hatcheries can play in terms of the steelhead and the enhancement program that you have in terms of your recovery strategy? Can you talk about that?

[Rebecca Reid]

I'll start, but I'm sure Mr. Bison would like to weigh in as well.

Our view is there is a role for conservation-based enhancement activities. At the very low levels where steelhead are now, putting in some enhancement efforts would be beneficial in the short term, understanding the importance of maintaining the wildness of those stocks.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Go ahead.

[Dr. Eric Taylor]

I just want to clarify something. You mentioned the term “recovery strategy”. In my world—I'm no longer the chair of COSEWIC—that refers to a document and a series of meetings that follow after a species is formally listed legally under the Species at Risk Act. In my experience, the fastest way to martial a coordinated monetary attack to recover a species at risk is to get it listed under the Species at Risk Act.

This is why people can't provide you with a number. It's because there isn't that discipline that listing under the Species at Risk Act will provide to initiate formal recovery efforts that have a reporting structure to the public, which is lacking right now.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Do you have any comments on that, Mr. Bech?

Sorry, you have your hand up. I'll go with you, Mr. Bison.

[Robert Bison]

On the hatchery question, I just want to reiterate that, at the end of my presentation, I noticed my screen saver came on. There was final point, and I don't know if it transmitted properly.

If we are concerned about recovery, there is very little potential to recover if you improve the survival between egg to smolt. A hatchery is a way of improving survival between those stages. It's important to understand, and this is particularly true for steelhead, given the complexity of the life history with rainbow trout, that it's very much conditional. If we're talking about recovery, it's very much conditional on that survival while and after they go to sea to when they return. That is what will impart recovery.

You will not recover by investing in improvements in freshwater survival. You may be able to prolong their persistence in the freshwater habitats that they occupy, but you cannot recover them by investing solely at the freshwater stage.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Bech, do you have any final comments?

[Poul Bech]

I'm unaware of a single steelhead population that's ever been recovered through hatcheries. That was part of my job for 20 years before I retired. I was facilitating and assessing steelhead hatchery programs in the Lower Mainland. There were 17 different programs on different rivers, and not one was successful in improving the wild steelhead population.

Beyond that, in terms of the province, it has the responsibility for managing these fish, and since the COSEWIC announcement, I'm unaware of a single addition to staff resources directed towards interior Fraser steelhead. That's really disappointing to me. I was hoping to see some sort of task force between the ministries and between the region and the province. Part of the problem is the way that provincial fisheries are organized.

Mr. Bison works in a region, and he reports to a whole series of foresters. In FLNRO, fisheries management is just a tiny, tiny portion of their responsibilities. I don't even think it's called a fisheries section anymore. It's like an area of responsibility or something like that. Then there are provincial fisheries biologists who work at headquarters, but they're not attached to the regions. There's no supervisory relationship there at all.

Part of it is an organizational problem, as well. At the senior levels in FLNRO, there's not a whole lot of professional interest in steelhead. They're all foresters. There are lots of problems in forestry these days, so it's not a priority until people start squawking about it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you for that.

Our witnesses are probably limited on time. I don't know if you have 10 minutes more. If so, we could do a three-minute round.

I see people nodding their heads. Okay. I'll be strict on the time.

We'll go with Mr. Finnigan for three minutes or less, please.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Thank you for being here today.

I'm from the east coast, and this resembles very much the issue we have with the salmon and sea survival, with the gillnet issues and all of that.

There's some difference in identifying this in terms of whether it's from the salmon family or the trout family. I'm not a biologist, but that's what I hear. What difference would it make if this was a salmon?

Anyone could take that if they feel comfortable.

[Dr. Eric Taylor]

I'm not sure I can answer your question directly, but we seem to be spending a lot of time on this issue of whether we're going to differentiate a trout, something living its whole life in fresh water, from a steelhead that spends some time going to the sea.

I know in these rivers, I would bet very strongly that all British Columbians involved in angling would gladly forgo the opportunity to catch Oncorhynchus mykiss, a rainbow trout/steelhead, in these affected rivers, if they knew that the steelhead itself was listed under SARA and there was a coordinated effort to recover them. People are willing to make that sacrifice here in British Columbia, so I think the issue really of whether it's a rainbow or a steelhead is totally irrelevant to this discussion.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Okay, thank you.

[Dr. Eric Taylor]

It's a fascinating question biologically, and I appreciate your question, but practically, people will buy into that in two seconds flat.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Okay. I don't know if there's a differing opinion. If not, I'll move to the next question. We're all okay on that.

As for the salmon, mortality at sea is a big issue and we hardly understand it at all. We don't know what happens because we only have a 3% return. We know there's predation, and we also know that the warming of the waters and climate change has some effect. Is that something you suspect could also have some effect on the survival of the steelhead?

Go ahead, Mr. Bison.

[Robert Bison]

One of the three factors—predation, competition and fishing—that I mentioned, which is competition, is in the context of the ocean conditions. In the Pacific, the condition of the ocean to produce salmon is definitely cyclical, and the conditions could even be episodic. We recently went through a very bad episode of bad salmon production. It could also be trending in relation to climate change and factors like that.

Competition is the interaction of the inputs of salmon into the north Pacific with what its capacity is, and there's definitely a cyclical component. Lately we've seen some dramatic episodic components in the interaction of that input with its ability to produce salmon. You're correct that there is the ocean element, but to simplify it, competition within that capacity to produce salmon and how it changes over time is really how it works. You are correct.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Finnigan.

We'll go now to Mr. Calkins for three minutes or less, please.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Good. I haven't talked about Oncorhynchus mykiss in a long time. This is fantastic.

The ability, I think somebody said, to use morphometric measures to distinguish versions of Oncorhynchus mykiss as being steelhead and those that are not seems a relatively difficult task, even for somebody who might actually know. A relatively educated angler, I would argue, wouldn't even have the ability sometimes to tell the difference between a rainbow trout and a cutthroat trout, depending on the environmental conditions. We have a very difficult choice to make here, and I appreciate the technical expertise at the table today.

I do have a question, though, for Mr. Bech.

You talked about the pound traps. I'm just wondering why you would include the pound traps and not also include the possibility of using a fish wheel. Is there something about fish wheels that you don't like, or is there something you could edify this committee about? I see it as being just as useful as a pound trap could be.

[Poul Bech]

I have nothing against fish wheels, but pound traps have lower mortality attached to them.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Is there a little higher mortality with the wheels than with the traps? Okay.

[Poul Bech]

It's a lot less than a gillnet, but it's—