Fisheries committee  It really comes down to what species of seal you're talking about. I believe that the bearded seal is very much a heavy-crab-eating seal that you get off the northwest coast of Newfoundland. When it comes to lobster consumption, if you look over at Danny, in the room, he'll be ab

Fisheries committee  I would say we are in a position where there is a lot of information out there. Whether it's been interpreted or collected and balanced is another question. I would say that we have enough in hand to take some significant actions on the seal populations.

Fisheries committee  There's a good chance. If you just take something like the grey seal population on the Scotian Shelf and figure out how much fish they would have to eat to survive, and then you look at DFO's own research vessel survey, you'd come out to about 50% of the total fish biomass observ

Fisheries committee  It gets put into a pit, and it can't find a way out of it.

Fisheries committee  That is an excellent question, because it forces us to stand, look forward and say that if we have a seal herd that exists at this current population level and we're not going to take any proactive action to try to dial it down, then I don't think it's reasonable for us to expect

Fisheries committee  You can use either one.

Fisheries committee  Yes.

Fisheries committee  I would call that a stretch. The reason I would say that is that if you take a look at simply the maritime region, this is where DFO's own scientists have demonstrated this substantive increase in natural mortality in many of our groundfish stocks. They've all been synonymous wit

Fisheries committee  Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this meeting. Discussions on the impacts of pinniped populations often focus on the direct impacts on commercial species. Images of eviscerated cod at the bottom of coves or stomach contents from harvested animals fill our minds.

Fisheries committee  Yes, it is quite clear over the recent history of the last, I would say, five years or so, that we've seen an increasing shift away from those industry stakeholders who were directly linked to the resource and their being replaced by ENGOs who might come from well-educated backgr

Fisheries committee  I have to harken back to Mr. LeBlanc's input here, which is that we can't only be happy when science says something is going up. Really, this is about getting the right answer and getting a consistent answer. Whether a stock is appearing better or a stock is appearing worse, that

Fisheries committee  Thank you for the question. The big issue on our side was really one related to consultation and notice. There was no notification that this was happening. We were not engaged with the department to help guide the cable. It was basically a proponent talking directly to us to let

Fisheries committee  Yes, that is exactly the focus, where you have a body of knowledge from outside that is in conflict or in contrast to that presented in the room. Unless that knowledge is brought to the table during those discussions in the CSAS process, it generally is not accepted, so then it i

Fisheries committee  This is one of those questions you could go on for hours about. The reality is that every stock assessment model is fundamentally different in how it's structured. One of the important pieces at the review process is to pick apart that model and to make sure that it actually make

Fisheries committee  Really a great example of this lies with DFO survey information, which Mr. Bonnell was just discussing. Surveys are conducted annually and those surveys require...whether they sample during the day or the night and how this changes over time. If you have a staff member who's well