Fisheries committee  Unfortunately, I haven't seen the budget, so I'm not really privy to answer that. I know basically everything that has been on a funding freeze and that has been working could probably use support. On the filling of data gaps, again Dr. Beamish talks about this. We have risk as

Fisheries committee  We undertake an assessment and we undertake smolt surveys. We're looking at bottlenecks in the estuary by using tagging. We do the snorkel surveys and the creek walks to count the fish. It's just that 20 years ago we did way more. The data gaps that Dr. Beamish alluded to are d

Fisheries committee  Thank you.

Fisheries committee  We partner with DFO in every which way. We're the data collectors. We're raising and studying fish. We are looking through tagging and research at the bottlenecks that Dr. Beamish alludes to, at least in our area. The cutbacks on that research affect it greatly. We haven't talked

Fisheries committee  Ironically, the mobile marking trailer I've heard about for two years showed up last month, and we just used it last week. Prior to that, it was used in a Tofino hatchery to mark chum. I'm very excited that we now have a unit on the coast that is working. I'm very excited this we

Fisheries committee  Our facility was built in 1975. For a house on the west coast of that age, there's lots of maintenance, let alone when there's water running through it. We've done quite a bit of fundraising to maintain our facility and upgrade it to the highest level of biosecurity standards, so

Fisheries committee  For starters, because we all are small hatcheries—we're not federal facilities—you could just shut us down. There are no pensions, no union jobs. We put up to a quarter of our budget towards helping the Tofino hatchery in resources. They've been engaging lots of different volunte

Fisheries committee  There's lots of chatter, but have we been consulted as a hatchery? No, not really. We are the boots on the ground. We're the data collectors. We're feeding information into these think tanks.

Fisheries committee  I think about the work we're doing in our area. Science is growing in leaps and bounds. To speak to what Dick Beamish just said, the research we're doing is looking at bottlenecks in the estuary by using very advanced PIT-tagging technology. We'll be able to track these fish righ

Fisheries committee  I think we're starting to, yes. We're starting to find those bottlenecks, and certainly everybody is speaking to them.

Fisheries committee  Thank you. My name is Dave Hurwitz. After leaving university, I commercially fished the west coast of Vancouver Island for 17 years. For the past six years, I've been the manager of the Thornton Creek Hatchery, located in Ucluelet on the west coast of Vancouver Island and operat