Good afternoon, everyone.
Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear here today.
Let me introduce myself briefly. My name is François Caron and I am a biologist. In 1980, I began working for the Ministry of Forests, Wildlife and Parks of Quebec, and my work was on salmon.
As you probably know, for a long time, that is to say since 1922, salmon management and research in Quebec has been a matter of provincial jurisdiction, but there is also the Fisheries Act, a federal law, which contains a chapter that deals particularly with Quebec.
I began my career as a salmon researcher by choosing control rivers where we calculated, yearly, how many young salmon, smolts, went out to sea, and how many returned in subsequent years, that is to say after a year or two, and sometimes three, of being at sea.
As Mr. Gérald Chaput explained, salmon stocks are different according to regions. Quebec's salmon have a particular characteristic. With the exception of salmon populations that are close to Labrador and resemble the populations in that region, in the rest of Quebec, approximately 25% of the salmon are grilse, i.e. salmon that returns after only one year at sea. These are for the majority male, whereas the females spend two or three years at sea before they come back to reproduce for the first time.
These characteristics have greatly affected salmon management in Quebec. For quite a while now, we have taken additional measures to protect the females especially, which are the big salmon, by establishing the conservation limits we want to see observed in the rivers. Through my research and the work others have done previously, we also know that a river can receive a limited number of salmon, since the young ones have to be able to feed themselves during three, four and sometimes even five years in the river before they leave it.
I often compare a river to an agricultural field that can feed a given number of sheep or cows. A river also has a limited capacity to feed young salmon during the years they must stay there before they leave for the sea. That is a characteristic that is very different from most of the other salmon populations. For instance, in the case of Pacific salmon, certain populations leave the river only a few days after the eggs hatch.
My work has shown that there was a very important change in the survival of salmon at sea as of the beginning of the 1990s. Rivers continued to produce a relatively constant number of smolts, but the number of salmon that returned declined significantly. If we take a broader view of this, this phenomenon is not unique to Quebec, nor to North America. It has been observed in all of the salmon populations throughout the world. Other species such as cod also saw considerable declines in the beginning of the 1990s.
I am ready to answer your questions, but first I would like to point out some of the features of the Quebec salmon management system. In most of the large rivers, salmon is managed through what we call controlled harvesting zones. That is quite unique in Quebec. Local organizations collect a daily fee from the people who come to fish in a river.
With this money, they hire conservation officers to ensure the salmon are protected during fishing season. This way of doing things seems very much appreciated and very effective. Conservation is ensured by these officers whose salaries are paid for by the fishers who come and fish in the rivers.
There are many economic spinoffs for the regions where salmon is fished. It is luxury fishing that is expensive, but it still interests people a great deal. There will always be appropriate management to first of all ensure stock conservation before allowing harvesting.
Those are my preliminary remarks. I will be happy to answer your questions.