Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's a pleasure for me to be here today.
Of course, being able to talk to Mr. Chair, by whom I am represented in Harbour Grace, is wonderful.
Saving the seals and, in turn, saving the fish stocks and helping support humankind is very important to me.
The reason I have become very interested in the seals is that they seem to be an exceptionally smart species. Recently, we have seen, on a video camera placed in the shrimp trawl cod end of the factory ships that we operate from Newfoundland into the Arctic, that a seal could dive down more than 500 metres and feed on fish that was being discarded from the Nordmore grates, which is a system we have to discard groundfish. The seal was waiting for fish to come through, and it would take it and feed on it.
It is indicated—and I can't confirm this as the real truth—that seals can stay down for maybe up to 30 minutes due to the oxygen capacity in their blood and body. This is a wonderful natural system that they have developed. How could any living animal dive down as far as that? A human being could never do anything like it. It is probably most likely just seals and whales that are capable of doing these things.
If we could use products created from the complete seal body, we could produce high-value products, and one of those products that is already produced is the long-chain seal oil. Second is something I have been involved in with other scientists from my home country of Norway—heme iron pills, which can help regarding people who have iron deficiencies.
Products of lower value could be food and various other things that can be developed through research and given to countries that need health food options. Of course, clothing has been produced over the years, and in China, for example, they are very good at producing something out of discards, including intestines. Further research on other potential products could be made so that 100% of the seal could be used.
The seals need from 1,200 to 1,500 kilograms of food per year to sustain themselves. Grey seals might need upwards of 3,000 kilograms. That means that there is a lot of food that the ocean has to give them. Based on the number of seals, if they are lacking food, they could end up starving and, in the end, from disease and from other causes due to their bad health, they could disappear.
Our economy of Atlantic Canada will suffer greatly if the fishing industries end up in trouble, as our economy today is also being supported by what we harvest from our oceans. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that proper research is done and a true picture is given on how we can save our oceans.
We are working with a scientist in Norway, Mr. Rune Ulvik, and he has been studying how the heme iron from the seals can be produced in pill form. In the laboratory he is working with, they are also checking whether there are any other heavy metals in the seals that could harm any of the products that could be developed, and how to get rid of the metals for a safe product.
For example, many millions of people around the world need to take iron for their health. Such iron is being produced chemically and the side effects are very painful and people have a hard time using it. The heme iron, for example, from seals has proven that it can be taken without any side effects, and it's very effective as it is from nature.