Salmon stocks are fluctuating wildly. Some are crashing and some are suddenly big, and we have no idea why. People are counting salmon in a different way up and down the coast. There's no unified system. Unless there is a detailed plan.... For example, what the director should do is go out to all the watersheds right now and find out what is going on: take the scientific tools, get everybody counting and measuring the environmental parameters in the same way and provide that data to mathematical modellers. Then, suddenly, the chaos that we're watching starts to make sense and you realize what is going on. It is absolutely key. It is one of the Cohen recommendations.
You have to have someone in DFO whose whole life is understanding not only why these salmon populations are crashing but why some of them are doing well, so that we do have an opportunity to see what is working. As a member of the fish health committee with DFO this winter, I can tell you that there is nobody in DFO whose entire job is the state of Pacific wild salmon.