Fisheries Committee on April 27th, 2023

[Kilian Stehfest]

I'm aware of the indigenous-proposed cull of pinnipeds on the west coast, and I would say that there are very divergent opinions on the issue in first nations. They're not a monolith.

I think science probably has a bit of an advantage over the more on-the-ground and on-the-water information in that the pinniped diet is so varied. They prey on so many different species. It varies by location, season, age and sex. Having comprehensive diet-sampling studies, for me, is more relevant than someone observing a seal feeding on a certain thing.

The other thing is that pinnipeds are very in-your-face kinds of predators. We don't see other predatory fish feeding on salmon, cod or herring, but we can see seals. I think that's why they often end up as a scapegoat for the natural mortality of fish.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Evidence that we heard previously suggests that the seal population on the east coast is suffering. The animals are smaller. The natural abortion rate among females is higher. They're eating shrimp instead of other species because those other species are no longer greatly available.

We heard the suggestion that a harvest—and I'll use that word instead of the word you're using—might in fact be beneficial to the overall health of the population. Can you comment on that?

[Kilian Stehfest]

Would you mind if I quickly go into the distinction between a cull and a harvest, because it seems like an issue that keeps coming up.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

You keep using the word “cull” and that has a very charged and emotive meaning to people, especially the general public. With regard to a “harvest”, the animal isn't just killed gratuitously to get it out of the way, but there's a market and a use for the products, such as vitamins and other things from seals that the world needs.

There is a difference in those two words, sir, and the use of the word “cull” is now a pejorative in fact in this discussion.

[Kilian Stehfest]

I think you can have a different perspective on what the distinction is. I understand that for a harvester, for example, the end use of the seal—

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

I don't want to go there. I want you to comment on what we heard from the east coast—that the population in fact is suffering because it's running out of food and eating things that are not giving it nutrition, and doing something about the population could improve the well-being of seals and sea lions right across the board.

I think I'm out of time, but maybe you can work something like that into other answers to questions. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Hardie.

We'll now go to Madam Desbiens, for six minutes or less, please.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for being with us because it is always informative.

I am happy that we have someone here with us who is a little more skeptical about pinniped management and about the way we are thinking at the table, so that we can make good recommendations for the government. It is important to hear what may sometimes be polarizing opinions so that we can question and challenges ourselves on how to move forward in a fair and wise way.

I will direct my questions to you, Mr. Stehfest. I am very familiar with the David Suzuki Foundation.

I don't think anyone at this table wants a cull, vicious or otherwise, of pinnipeds or any other animal population just for the sake of killing animals. Very few people who care about the ecosystem balance of our rivers and oceans want that. I am a strong supporter of respecting animals and especially nature.

With that in mind, I would like to hear your thoughts on the balance between prey and predator, a subject that I have often raised at this table. There is a natural balance between prey and predators on the planet. Historically, humans have been a part of that. Of course, as with everything, there have been abuses. We will not talk about the abuse of other animals that are raised in industrial operations and that are hung, still alive, from hooks for transport because it costs less. There are all sorts of terrible things happening out there in the world.

However, if we look at what indigenous people do as part of their rituals and what is done by the people of the Magdalen Islands, whose survival can be attributed to seal hunting, then did we not throw the important ecological balance between prey and predator out of whack when we banned seal hunting?

[Kilian Stehfest]

I just want to clarify that I agree that humans are part of nature and the ecosystem. I'm not here to in any way speak out against a sustainably managed seal harvest. However, my distinction between a cull and a harvest, I think, is different from some of the committee members'. I can understand why the end use of the seal is important for a harvester or a societal value discussion, but for the ecosystem, what happens to the seal after it's been killed doesn't matter.

For me, from an ecosystem perspective, a more meaningful distinction is how we set our management objectives for the harvest. Generally, in conventional fisheries management, our objective is to ensure a healthy population and healthy ecosystem function, but if you want to kill seals to benefit fish stocks, it's the opposite of that. You're trying to depress the population and actively alter how the ecosystem functions.

What's linked to that is how you set your harvest rate. A harvest rate based on sustainable and healthy populations is very different from saying that we want to benefit a certain fish stock, because the literature is very clear that to have any chance at all of the pinniped cull benefiting fish populations, you will have to have a reduction of at least 50%. That would completely fall outside of the bounds of a sustainably managed harvest.

For me, that is a more meaningful distinction, from an ecosystem perspective, between a cull and a harvest.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

I want to tell you a story about my family. My father was a cod fisherman. He observed the ocean his whole life, and he was very familiar with seals and their interactions with fish stocks in the Saint Lawrence River. That was his science, as it is still today the science of other people that we know well, some of whom testified before the committee.

I was out fishing with my father one day when the whole controversy that led to the end of the seal hunt was going on. He made an offhand remark about how we should be taking advantage of the fact that we could still eat cod because now that there was going to be no more seal hunt the cod stocks would start to drop and there would be no more cod in about 10 years' time.

A few years later, I was dating a scuba diver. When he was doing some diving in Les Escoumins, he noticed that there were a lot of eviscerated cod on the seabed whose viscera had disappeared. He also saw seals attacking cod in the ocean, so for me, this all makes sense.

What do you think about that? I think that we agree on certain things, namely the fact that we need to manage the pinniped population in a fair and balanced way and that managing it does not mean a massive slaughter. What is your opinion on the data that has been collected on the ground? Is your foundation collecting data on the ground from people who live along the river?

[Kilian Stehfest]

The foundation is involved in all kinds of forums on fisheries management on the west coast. I have to admit I'm not as familiar with the issue on the east coast, because my work is really focused on the Pacific. However, I absolutely think we are listening to the commercial fishing sector on a whole host of issues.

I also understand the examples you gave. They create a very visceral and emotional response from someone who depends on the cod fishery, for example. I can absolutely, on a personal level, understand that, but I think when we're trying to make management decisions, they can't be based on those kinds of emotional responses. They need to be based on the best available data and what we know about the ecosystem.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you.

We'll now go to Ms. Barron for six minutes or less, please.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

My first question is for Mr. McIsaac. Thank you for being here, Mr. McIsaac.

We've had others from the west coast here at our committee. I'm wondering if you can share with us the first logical step on how to best move forward. There was a suggestion that we have an experimental seal harvest. I think 5,000 was the number given by Mr. Stabler, who was here before.

What are your thoughts around the next best steps on the west coast?

[Jim McIsaac]

Thank you very much for that question. It's a good question.

It's difficult, because we have these polarized views about any kind of harvest going forward or a reduction in population to benefit fisheries and questioning whether that's good for the ecosystem or not.

For our fisheries here, if you watch the video footage for the herring fishery over the last two months, you would have seen herring sets that are full of sea lions and seals going into nets and eating and disrupting the fishery. If you set a lone gillnet for a herring fishery, you were cleaned out. You had to set multiple nets in order to have one that is able to fish.

You have a population that is out of control from a fisheries point of view—maybe not from an ecosystem point of view, but from a fisheries point of view—so you need to do some kind of management here. If the aquaculture sector is licensed to kill when their livelihood is at stake, I think we need to be looking at something like that to allow harvesters to protect their livelihood. If they're not going to allow a harvest of a population of seals and sea lions, then at least allow us to protect our livelihoods.

Thank you.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you, Mr. McIsaac.

I have a follow-up question around that. I was speaking with somebody in Newfoundland recently. I was asking about the infrastructure that is in place—particularly the vessels—to be able to do a sustainable seal harvest to utilize the entire seal. He was pointing out that it's often quite cold in Newfoundland when the seal harvests are happening, and therefore the refrigeration happens naturally within that process.

I'm wondering if you can share any thoughts around what we have in place currently for infrastructure on the west coast if we were to look at sustainably harvesting seals, and what would be required to move forward to do that.

[Jim McIsaac]

I would say that we're losing our infrastructure for fisheries in general on the west coast, so I would say there's very little. It would have to be developed.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you.

My next question is for Mr. Stehfest.

My question for you is around the Columbia River. We've heard it come up a few times in this committee. I'm wondering if you can share your thoughts and perspectives around what occurred along the Columbia River around the pinniped population. Can you share any thoughts around that, please?

[Kilian Stehfest]

Sure, and thank you for that question.

For the Columbia River, I think what's important to understand is that this is a very spatially restricted solution to a problem of excessive consumption of salmon by sea lions caused by man-made infrastructure, mostly dams and fish ladders.

I think what's important, really, are the numbers. The total annual allowable removal of sea lions there is around 900. It's 10% of what a sustainable harvest rate for that population would look like. That is completely different from a 50% reduction. The motivation behind the removal rate in the Columbia River is specifically not to harm the population or change the viability of the population. It's a very different proposal from a large-scale reduction in seal populations.

There are lessons for us for British Columbia. I think a priority, if we're concerned about salmon consumption by seals, would be to look at whether there are situations of excessive consumption that are created by human infrastructure where we could actually alter or return it to a more natural state to have a restoration that would both benefit the salmon, in terms of better habitat, and remove that problem of excessive pinniped predation?

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you very much.

I'm going to go back to Mr. McIsaac for what I believe will be my final question.

Mr. McIsaac, you talked about an ecosystem-based management approach similar to what we see in Parks Canada, and you talked about how they do a better job at managing ecosystems than is seen within DFO. I'm wondering if you can expand on that and provide some examples of what you were referencing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Give a very short answer, please.

[Jim McIsaac]

They're not just managing people. They're managing all the species in an ecosystem. They're looking at species that are expanding at too rapid a rate or impacting other species. DFO is not doing that. They're only managing people in the ecosystem. That needs to change if we're going to do ecosystem-based management.

The goal is to be doing ecosystem-based management. We are part of the ecosystem, and what we eat matters in the ecosystem. I don't agree that what happens after the harvest doesn't matter in the ecosystem. It certainly does, because if we have to get our food somewhere else, we're going to make impacts somewhere else. Everything we do in the ecosystem matters. We need to be thinking a bit more broadly than we are right now.

Thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Ms. Barron.

We'll now go to Mr. Arnold for five minutes or less.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for being here.

I want to start off with Mr. McIsaac.

It seems you have fairly extensive industry experience, and you've talked with other people in the industry. Have you witnessed any human safety concerns over the number of seals and sea lions approaching docks or fishing operations?

[Jim McIsaac]

The number one graphic from Cowichan Bay is an example of that. The infrastructure put in there to protect the vessels in the harbour is now taken over by sea lions through three months. You can't go onto that dock safely. That's a huge concern. In our fisheries, the number of seals and sea lions inside nets is a danger. We have a huge population of sea lions along the outer coast of our Gulf Islands. Going along there in a kayak is threatening to people now, because there are so many of them. There are instances of sea lions coming up to wharfs and yanking children off the wharfs, and doing the same in boats.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you for that.

We're hoping to get witness testimony from our U.S. counterparts in Washington and Oregon, but I don't know whether we're going to be able to get that.

Would this committee benefit from hearing about what has been taking place in the U.S., in your experience?