I visited the marine science centre in 2008 with Dr. Pierre-Yves Daoust, who is the veterinarian who helped us reshape the marine mammal regulations for the three-step process.
At the time, I asked the caretaker how much each of these adult seals was eating. He was very proud to inform me that he had returned the seals to a healthy body weight from the previous care of the earlier caretaker, who had been feeding them in excess of three metric tons of pelagic species per year. That's whole fish down the throat of the seal. It doesn't account for any belly biting or discard. At that time, the seals had grown to obese proportions where they couldn't even get out of the pool anymore. The new caretaker cut the seals back to 2.2 metric tons of fish per year to achieve a healthy body weight for a seal in captivity.
We presently use one metric ton as the amount that seals eat in Canadian waters, yet we encourage the ASSTT to review that data, and we're not able to access it. There's a real question on my behalf about the sincerity to evaluate the numbers that we presently have at hand. I'm pretty sure everybody here who has a pet knows how much they feed it per week, per month and per year, so I'm pretty sure we'd know what we feed those harp seals in the swimming pool down in Logy Bay.