I strongly disagree with that. I read the papers myself. Where do you get that information when there are 300,000 striped bass in the estuary of the Miramichi at the same time the smolts are undergoing their downstream migration? Let's say the percentage of striped bass that take the smolts may be relatively small, populations of the salmon are very low, so even if 20% of the 300,000 striped bass take smolts, that is a lot of smolts and a lot of production that is not happening. You refused to increase the.... In our view, you could have instituted a major increase in the harvest of striped bass because people prefer Atlantic salmon to striped bass. I think it's time for the department to realize that people are their clients and not the fish.
Thank you very much.