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.
Engineering Research Scientist, Deputy Minister's Office, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
On the issue of whether these animals will end up in net pens, I have heard of no plans to do that, and it's because of the things I mentioned previously that there's a great deal of uncertainty as to what the effects are. It would be unlikely that there would be approval of a product or a production scenario if the animals were outside a very tightly confined land-based facility.
Their use in land-based facilities may have some very significant benefit in the sense that they're very efficient at using food resources, and they can improve on the production efficiency of those operations and make land-based aquaculture a more attractive option for aquaculture producers.
The food safety side of things—I think this was your second question—is not really my area at all. I read the press release from Health Canada and CFIA, and there is no requirement for labelling of this product in Canada.
Liberal
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Thanks.
Mr. Green, just to set your mind at ease, section 35 of the new Fisheries Act is still in place with the habitat protections. There was a hue and cry in rural Canada with the old act with fisheries officers inspecting every farmer's drainage ditch. Quite frankly, it was to little effect in fish production. We changed the act to focus on fisheries of human concern. Section 35 is still there.
Dr. Cunjak, in terms of the recreational fisheries conservation partnerships program, that program, that kind of partnership, became allowed because we changed the Fisheries Act.
I'm sure, Mr. Green, you're familiar with the Miramichi Salmon Association. We worked with Stephen Tonning and Mark Hambrook, and they did some great work using those funds to create cold-water refugia, eliminate the beaver dams from some of the tributaries, and so on. We were very strong believers in on-the-ground conservation efforts in partnerships with local groups.
There were some 800 projects across Canada under the RFCPP.
I'd like to follow up on Mr. Hardie's excellent line of questioning on adaptive management.
I've got the report from the wild salmon committee in front of me. The striped bass have gone up to 250,000 fish. One study showed that some sample fish had between one and six salmon smolts in them.
Dr. Cunjak, your point about 10% predation is much more significant when the population is low. What would be wrong with running a field experiment where you decide that instead of 250,000 striped bass, we'd like to knock the population back to 100,000, which I gather is about four times what it was when it was potentially a SARA-listed species? What would be the downside of running a real live in-the-field experiment?
Professor, Department of Biology, University of New Brunswick, As an Individual
I don't think there's any downside. I'd encourage it. That's exactly the point, even in the recommendations: we need some action. Having comprehensive, directed research and experiments is exactly what I think we should be doing more of.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
That's excellent.
In terms of a project like that, I don't know the striped bass fishery in eastern Canada. Is it fairly concentrated? If you did the Miramichi, for example, where the anglers are obviously on the banks, if you went up and down the bank and sampled their catch for stomach analysis and catch per unit effort, that would be a fairly easy study to do, I would presume. Am I correct in that, Dr. Cunjak?
Professor, Department of Biology, University of New Brunswick, As an Individual
I'd suggest it would be relatively easy.
We have deer stations when people go out on the much larger landscape and have to have their animals weighed or measured and aged. Here you're talking about, within an estuary in a lower portion of a river, having a couple of census stations where, if you're going to be bringing.... Or someone could go along the bank and collect stomachs when the fish are opened up, and look inside them. There are relatively easy ways to do this.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
The smallmouth bass also came up in the report as an invasive species that was illegally introduced. Do we have any data, Dr. Cunjak, on smallmouth bass predation on young salmon?
Professor, Department of Biology, University of New Brunswick, As an Individual
I would say that we don't have any direct evidence of it on salmon, only because they co-occur so infrequently, but there's a huge concern right now in the Miramichi because of the introduction into one headwater lake, that they will now get into the Main Wouthwest Miramichi. They do occur in the Saint John River system, where there are also salmon, but to my knowledge there has been no directed study to look at their potential impact on salmon there.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
I gather that either DFO or the province was trying to eradicate smallmouth bass from Miramichi Lake. Do you think that's even possible now?
Professor, Department of Biology, University of New Brunswick, As an Individual
No.
Conservative
Professor, Department of Biology, University of New Brunswick, As an Individual
I think it may have been possible in a different system. For instance, there was another predator years ago, in another lake in the Miramichi, but it was a shallower, more simple sort of system, where they were able to eradicate with a poison, rotenone. That was effective.
The problem in this particular system in Miramichi Lake is that they apparently weren't allowed to use the poison. The attempts made through a combination of gillnetting and electrofishing in different portions basically kept the numbers down, but that agreement is now over. The young-of-the-year smallmouth bass are up again, and there's only a four-kilometre stretch with no barriers to the Main Southwest Miramichi for them to move to.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Thanks very much.
Thank you very much to our witnesses. That was most interesting testimony.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
I'd like to echo those sentiments.
We've come to the conclusion of our witness testimony. I would like to sincerely thank Monsieur Caron, Dr. Cunjak, Dr. Devlin, and of course Mr. Green for their contributions here today.
Thank you very much.
We'll take a short break and then go straight into committee business.
[Proceedings continue in camera]