Fisheries committee  I don't have a specific explanation for this. The scientific consensus had already been calling for a major reduction in quotas for a good ten years, but they were not reduced very quickly. In my opinion, it was a good decision to close the fishery. How it was done is another s

Fisheries committee  This is a difficult question to answer. We need a good cohort, like the one we had in 1999. If we get a strong recruitment event, the fish that are born this year and will survive the larval stage in large numbers are going to be available for harvesting in four or five years at

Fisheries committee  It is always good to have a management plan that takes climate change into account. However, in the case of mackerel and similar species, the variation in conditions from year to year is very difficult to predict. Currently, the climate is tending to warm up, but there will sti

Fisheries committee  Yes, I can comment on that. Given that the biomass is depleted and because the data that are provided by the DFO on abundance are robust, we know that mackerel is one of the very few pelagic stocks that are managed with robust data in Canada. I'd like to highlight that. The fis

Fisheries committee  That's a good question. I would like to clarify that the work I did on mackerel was aimed at understanding the larval ecology. The data I was referring to in relation to the abundance of the stock is what Fisheries and Oceans Canada collects. As for the criteria for determining

Fisheries committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I am a professor and Canada Research Chair in Fisheries Ecology at the Université du Québec à Rimouski. In 2008, I defended a doctoral thesis on the ecology of the larval stage of mackerel in the Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, with particular emph

Fisheries committee  In the case of mackerel, the last strong year class we saw was in 1999, which was the basis of my thesis. Since that time, we have had moderate cohorts. Since the beginning of 2010, there have been only small cohorts. For at least 10 or 12 years, recruitment has been very low and

Fisheries committee  This goes back a few years. My research was fundamental and aimed at understanding the link between larval growth and survival. We now know that the strong cohorts really emerge at the larval stage. These are the factors that favour or disadvantage larval survival and really affe

Fisheries committee  You're right. Atlantic mackerel doesn't have an acoustic survey, but given its biology, it's not the best species to consider with acoustics. It doesn't have a swim bladder, so it's not a good acoustic target. However, the department runs an egg survey. They monitor the number o

Fisheries committee  Yes. That's what I've concluded. The stock's level of biomass is very low. The issue is not only with commercial fishing; it's also with the bait fishery, which is not well accounted for in all regions. It's difficult to estimate the mortality through fishing. This is DFO scienc

Fisheries committee  Yes, sure. One of the options that could be considered is a branch for social sciences within the department because, really, sometimes we tend to forget that a fish stock is not just a fish stock. It sometimes represents the vitality and the economy of some communities. Just loo

Fisheries committee  Of course, people who are familiar with the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence know that the grey seal population has increased considerably. It is really the main predator in the system right now. That is one of the main reasons why groundfish stocks and some pelagic fish stocks are

Fisheries committee  There are no sociologists or economists present during stock assessments. Models in other countries, for example, Ifremer in France, which is the equivalent of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, have economic and social scientists involved in the processes. Of course, here we are look

Fisheries committee  We have talked a lot today about species such as salmon or Atlantic cod, which are species on which we have an enormous amount of data. There have been extensive research programs on these species, for a long time, because they are valuable and they are important culturally and e

Fisheries committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I will briefly introduce myself. I am a professor and research chair in fisheries ecology at the Université du Québec à Rimouski. As part of my research program, I regularly work with researchers from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, DFO, i