Evidence of meeting #15 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was river.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:05 p.m.
Author, Historian, As an Individual
It's more than that.
But I'll tell you, worse than that is that people way up river in Doaktown and Boiestown are now catching striped bass in the river. They're not restricting themselves to that particular area. They're moving up into the rivers as well, so they're feeding on the smolts all the way up. That's one I'd go after right away.
I'd also work hard to bring in a sustainable harvest of grey seals. I think that number is out of balance too.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Monsieur Caron, I think it was you who talked about hook and release. What are the current estimates of hooking mortality from salmon that are hooked, fought, and then released?
4:05 p.m.
Biologist, Ministerial Advisory Committee on Atlantic Salmon, As an Individual
The mortality rate of the species varies according to the conditions of the habitat.
When the water is warm, mortality is higher, and it varies from 2% to 10%. This is how we see that phenomenon: a harvested salmon will die 100% of the time. However, 90% to 98% of those that are put back in the water survive. So, there is an advantage to doing that. When fishers do that adequately, survival rates are higher.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Going back to Mr. Green regarding the Greenland overfishing, what would you recommend to the Canadian government in terms of putting some very serious pressure on Greenland to stop the plundering of our MSW salmon?
4:05 p.m.
Author, Historian, As an Individual
That's an interesting question.
I think one of the difficulties is that Greenland has sort of gone its own way, and when its economy is down, it catches more salmon and ignores those international limits that were suggested by NASCO and so on.
One approach to that might be to work with the European Union, because it set very strict quotas about the number of fish that can be caught offshore. That could be one way of doing it. The other thing is that, if we do our homework in Canada, it's going to be much easier for us to force Denmark and Greenland to get in line and help save these salmon.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
I have one quick question for Dr. Cunjak. Why are the stocks of northern Atlantic salmon off Labrador and Newfoundland doing so much better than the ones, for example, in the Bay of Fundy?
4:10 p.m.
Professor, Department of Biology, University of New Brunswick, As an Individual
The prevailing theory on that one, as François Caron mentioned, is that it's really the sort of north-south clime. Temperatures are cooler in the rivers. Conditions are better for fish in these systems than they are in the southern end of the distribution for early Atlantic salmon. I think our southern rivers are just far too warm right now.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
I'm very glad to hear that, because I'm fishing the Eagle this August.
4:10 p.m.
Professor, Department of Biology, University of New Brunswick, As an Individual
You should do well.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
With that in mind, thank you, gentlemen.
I live on the Exploits River near Bishop's Falls.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
I'll fish it but I won't swim in it after the testimony I just heard. Cold waters indeed.
Now we go to Mr. Donnelly for seven minutes, please.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Fin Donnelly NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all our witnesses for being here on this important subject, wild Atlantic salmon.
In 2015, the Senate Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans published a three-part report on aquaculture. I want to read a couple of quotes from that here.
In his testimony to the committee on May 12, 2016, Mr. Bill Taylor of the Atlantic Salmon Federation noted that there is a much steeper decline in numbers of wild salmon living in rivers that are close to salmon-farming sites.
Dr. Jeffrey Hutchings of Dalhousie University noted that because wild salmon populations are at low levels in areas where there are salmon aquaculture sites, they are more vulnerable to aquaculture impacts.
Dr. Cunjak, could you comment on what you think the impacts of aquaculture are on wild salmon and on whether you would support a moratorium or an expansion of open-net aquaculture industry in your area?
4:10 p.m.
Professor, Department of Biology, University of New Brunswick, As an Individual
In terms of the impacts of aquaculture on Atlantic salmon, there hasn't been an awful lot actually done on this to specifically look at that question. There certainly are speculations and some studies looking at correlations have been done. For instance, in the Bay of Fundy, where we have pretty well lost most of our salmon stocks, and the greatest amount of aquaculture occurs, there seems to be this sort of coincidence of an increase in aquaculture operations and a decline in the Atlantic salmon. Whether it's cause and effect is a tough one to actually call. So I'm not sure.
Aquaculture certainly has been done better in recent years than it was done historically. Whether they can actually occur together—and I'd like to believe so—we really need to understand by looking at that question directly.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Fin Donnelly NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
You'd like to see more science and more studies done on that.
4:10 p.m.
Professor, Department of Biology, University of New Brunswick, As an Individual
I hate to sound like another one of those researchers who keep calling for more research every time somebody asks a question, because we do actually know a fair amount already from studies that have been done in other places, but I think certainly a focused question on whether aquaculture in this particular area is actually contributing to the decline would be a way to go at that. That hasn't been done on this coast.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
4:10 p.m.
Professor, Department of Biology, University of New Brunswick, As an Individual
I think we really have to target ocean research, but again, what specific question are we asking? That's a big area to go into. Remember what I said in my brief about calling it marine mortality. Is the marine mortality really something that's happening to smolts at the head of tide? Is it a function of what happens in fresh water before they get to that transition zone? Is it something that's happening off the coast or all the way out at Greenland or during the return migration? Those are all separate questions. They're not just one question as it relates to marine mortality.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Fin Donnelly NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Thank you, and thank you for your recommendations to the committee as well.
Dr. Devlin, of course there was a large announcement today and you talked about that with reference to genetically modified salmon and being the first country in the world. Now Canada has made this announcement and you talked about some of the scientific studies that happened to, I would assume, allow this decision to go forward. You mentioned low risk.
Could you expound on how the department got to that determination? My understanding is that it was Health Canada that made the announcement today and DFO was not part of that. Could you talk about the science behind this, the scientific studies, and the evidence to show that there would be low risk? Also, do you know about any consumer concerns or the aquaculture industry's concerns?
4:15 p.m.
Engineering Research Scientist, Deputy Minister's Office, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Certainly.
There are really several aspects to the risk assessment. Just to clarify, DFO interacts with Environment Canada, which is one of the leads for the Canadian Environmental Protection Act; the others are Health Canada and CFIA. Fisheries and Oceans is not directly involved in the CEPA regulation, but Environment Canada asked us to do a risk assessment because of our involvement in aquatic systems.
A number of different research and evaluation processes are under way. The main things that were undertaken in the risk assessment were to assess exposure, that is, the potential for the genetically engineered fish to enter the Canadian waterways, and the other components were whether there were any indirect human health issues, and most importantly perhaps, whether or not any environmental risk issues were identified.
On the first side of that equation, the exposure, there was an extremely thorough assessment of the Prince Edward Island facility where these animals are produced. Just to reiterate, AquaBounty's plan is to grow the fish in Prince Edward Island, up to the eyed egg stage, and then move them to Panama for grow-out, and then bring back into Canada and the United States the non-living organisms for sale. The main consideration was whether or not these animals could escape from the Prince Edward Island facility, and a very careful failure-mode analysis was done.
It was found that there were at least three to six different containment controls at every possible point of release at that facility. Because of that, the determination of a peer-reviewed committee undertaking this risk assessment was that there was negligible risk of the entry of those fish into Canadian waterways. “Negligible” is defined as there not being any fish in the Canadian waterways.
That's the exposure side of things. On the other side, there's indirect human health, which looks at the potential for pathogens or allergens to have an impact on humans. That was also felt to be very low. There was no scientific data to support that. But on the environmental hazard side of things, the potential for damage to the environment, five or six different components of the environment—Atlantic salmon, predators, prey, competitors, habitat, and so on—the potential risk was determined to be very high.
These two components—the exposure component and the hazard assessment—are combined, and the ultimate determination was a low risk. What determines that is that the fish are not going to be entering the aquatic system because of the containment measures that exist at the facility, under those exact conditions only.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Thank you very much.
We're now going to move on to Ms. Jordan, for seven minutes, please.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Bernadette Jordan Liberal South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for appearing today.
Dr. Cunjak, after hearing testimony for the past number of weeks on the decline of the Atlantic salmon, it seems as if it's more like death by a thousand cuts than any one thing. We have problems with habitat predation, aquaculture, at-sea mortality. Although we don't know yet where the 135 scientists are going to be located throughout DFO, if you had one area that you think needs more study, something more defined that we can look at, where would you suggest that we look for the Atlantic salmon?
4:20 p.m.
Professor, Department of Biology, University of New Brunswick, As an Individual
It's a tough question, because I certainly have interests in the fresh water. Everyone keeps pointing to the marine side, so I think a significant amount of emphasis has to go to address questions as they relate to marine mortality. Whether that means focusing on what's happening in the estuaries in terms of predation, that might be relatively easy and a good first step. The question being raised in many places right now is whether predation, as it occurs in the estuary, by striped bass in the Miramichi or by seals in the nearshore, is really significant. One of the problems right now is that the evidence that relates to this is anecdotal. Sometimes you'll hear they found salmon in 20 fish. I was out last week fishing stripers in the Miramichi estuary and all the ones we saw and the ones whose stomachs we looked in had smelts. Is it really an issue or is it because there hasn't been a concerted effort scientifically to sample across the time period that smolts are moving to see if they're being consumed in any significant number?
As Jeff Hutchings said, one of the problems when you already have a small population size, is that it may not take that many to significantly hammer a population. Nevertheless, I think a concerted effort to start looking at that nearshore might be one way to start focusing at least on one aspect of that marine mortality.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Bernadette Jordan Liberal South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Thank you very much.
Dr. Devlin, I have a question for you. You said you've done research that shows you can't breed Atlantic salmon with...did you say chinook?