Of course, people who are familiar with the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence know that the grey seal population has increased considerably. It is really the main predator in the system right now. That is one of the main reasons why groundfish stocks and some pelagic fish stocks are not doing well.
However, we must not forget the fishing activities. We were talking about mackerel earlier. That's an example I'm familiar with, because I wrote my thesis on mackerel at a time when stocks weren't threatened. For at least a decade, Fisheries and Oceans Canada's stock assessment reports have been saying that fishing pressure on mackerel is too high. The latest reports even talk about overfishing, and it took a long time before the fishery was closed.
Earlier, we talked about the independent model that Dr. Reynolds described very well. We have to come up with a management system that is more representative of the current situation and stop pushing the problem forward. As a result, mackerel fishing was stopped suddenly this year, without warning. It was the right decision to make given the state of the stock, but I think mackerel fishing should have been suspended or severely restricted long before that.