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I call the meeting to order.
We have a reduced quorum. Everybody knows what time the meeting starts, and it's important to follow our agenda.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), this is our study on the implementation of integrated fisheries management plans in the Pacific region and the Fraser salmon fishery.
We have a couple of items of business before we get started with our chief witness.
I'd like to welcome our new clerk, Miriam Burke, who will be working with the fisheries committee. Welcome. When the rest of our committee members get here, I'll welcome you again.
I would ask the members to turn off your BlackBerrys. This has been an ongoing issue with translation. It's very difficult to hear when the BlackBerrys are going off or being used, so I'm going to ask everybody, whether you're at the table or here as staff, to turn off your BlackBerrys. It would be appreciated.
Mr. Sprout, are you ready?
I appreciate the opportunity to appear at the standing committee.Today I'm going to make two presentations.
I'm going to start with the integrated commercial groundfish proposal. You should have a small deck in front of you, and I'm going to go through that. I'd like to start with the purpose.
I'd like to do three things this morning. I want to provide you with some background on the commercial integrated groundfish pilot project. More specifically, I want to describe why and how the pilot came about and its key elements. The pilot project is in progress, so today I'm going to provide an update on what we have seen so far in terms of the results. Then I'm going to speak very briefly to next steps, what we intend to do in terms of evaluating it.
I'm going to turn to the first slide, entitled “Background: fishery status and history prior to the pilot”. One thing I'm going to say several times in this presentation is that management of Pacific groundfish is complex. This deck is the distillation of a very complex fishery.
There are six major fishery categories in the British Columbia groundfish fishery. There's a groundfish trawl fishery, a halibut fishery, and sablefish, rockfish, ling cod, and dogfish fisheries. Each of these fisheries is separate; each of them has different licence types. There are over 50 species that we actually harvest in the six fishery categories I just mentioned. They use different gear types to catch those different species.
There are also multiple management strategies. For example, an individual quota is a management strategy. This is where a vessel has a quota to harvest a certain allocation of fish. We also have monthly catch limits. Vessels have a monthly limit under which they can catch fish, and they must stay within that monthly limit. We have trip limits. In other words, every time a vessel goes out, they have to have a certain catch. They can't go beyond that. We also have variations of what I've just described.
The significant concern in the groundfish fishery in British Columbia is the bycatch issue. These are fisheries that target certain species, and in the process they catch other species. It's unintended, but they're caught nevertheless. Previously, they were required to discard these species. A very high proportion of them die. They either die in the process of being caught or they die after being released. Further, they were not well documented. We did not have a good handle on how many fish were being caught as bycatch, as opposed to the target species--we have a pretty good handle on those.
This problem manifests itself from a conservation perspective. We have significant bycatch of various species that is not well documented. The fish are discarded, and a high proportion of them die. If we didn't bring this under control, our evidence was that we would be compromising the conservation of many of these species. In fact, COSEWIC is looking at potentially 21 species for listing in the long term. Once listed, they require rigorous constraints in terms of management. In examining this, we were very concerned about the conservation of the groundfish fishery in B.C. related to the bycatch problem.
The final point I want to make is that, historically, each of the fisheries I have spoken about were developed independently of each other fishery. There were reasons for that. We had a halibut fishery. There were halibut challenges. We developed a halibut reform. It was the same for groundfish trawl, ling cod, and for all the fisheries. Today that's not a sustainable concept. In many cases, in fact in most cases, a ling cod fishery catches fish that are caught in a halibut fishery. A halibut fishery catches fish that are caught in a ling cod fishery. A groundfish trawl fishery catches fish that are caught in a halibut fishery, and on it goes. We have to take a more integrated approach. We must address the conservation problems that are represented by rockfish and other bycatch.
This led us to a conclusion: either we reform the fishery or we close it down early. In other words, when we achieve the bycatch limitation, as best as we can determine it, we close the fishery. We know if we do that, it means closing our fisheries early and forgoing target species. Those are the two choices: we either reform the fishery and figure out a new way of doing business that addresses the conservation concerns, or we continue with the status quo, close the fisheries earlier, and forgo target fish to conserve bycatch.
I'm on the second slide, entitled “Background: setting the stage for change”. In 2003 the Department of Fisheries and Oceans outlined a series of principles to address the concerns I just noted. We said rockfish or bycatch must be accounted for, that we require new monitoring requirements to ensure that we document all harvesting, and that the catch limits for the species of concern must be respected.
So we outlined a series of guidelines and principles in 2003. We then turned to the industry itself and other participants. We said that we need to operate within these guidelines, but we're looking for advice on what we should do to address these guidelines in a way that makes sense to you and to us. Based on that, a decision was made to form a commercial groundfish integrated advisory committee. This is the committee comprised of the commercial industry--and I'll come to that in a moment--NGOs, community, the province, first nations, and recreational fishermen. This committee worked for over two years to look at potential reform in the commercial groundfish fishery. In addition, a subcommittee called the commercial industry committee, CIC, was set up. It was comprised of the industry representatives from the categories I referred to earlier--ling cod, rockfish, halibut, trawl and so forth. The members of the individual organizations chose who would be on that committee.
Those two groups had discussions over a two-year period. Ultimately, the commercial industry committee proposed an approach that came to be called the commercial integrated groundfish pilot. This was discussed in the integrated group, and it came to the minister's attention.
I'm on the slide entitled “The proposal”. The integration proposal is comprehensive, and it includes a number of elements. It is also complex--and that's the second time I've used this word. These are the highlights of this proposal:
First of all, it establishes individual quotas for all the commercial groundfish fisheries. Previously, we had quotas for the trawl fishery and the halibut fishery, but not for ling cod, not for rockfish, and not for dogfish. All groundfish fisheries in B.C. have quotas. The industry itself went through a process to determine those quotas. That's not described here; there's a separate analysis and separate information on that. But their view was that they needed to go to a quota fishery, that it needed to apply across all fisheries, and that they themselves should arrive at those quotas.
The second element is quota reallocations. We determined that we would allow quota reallocations between all groundfish fisheries. What this meant is that between the different fishery categories, quota could be exchanged within limits. The CIC said we can agree to exchanging quota, but within limits.
Third, there's 100% at-sea and dockside monitoring for all groundfish fisheries to address the catch reporting and documentation challenges I noted at the beginning of my remarks.
Fourth, all catch, including bycatch, is accounted for and has to stay within established total allowable catches. Under this regime, a TAC is identified for all rockfish and other bycatch and each fisherman has to stay within those total allowable harvests.
Finally, individual vessels have to account through quota for all the fish they catch. Let's pretend for a moment you're a halibut fisherman, so your target is halibut, but when you go out to catch halibut, you don't just catch halibut; you catch yelloweye, you catch other rockfish species. So under this regime proposed by the commercial fishermen, they said not only do I have to have a TAC for halibut, I also have to have an allocation for rockfish or yelloweye, and they all have to add up. I have to be able to account for every fish I catch. So you have to acquire the quota if you don't have it.
So in the end, you can account for every fish you catch. Every fish that's accounted for is within the TAC. The TAC represents a conservation limit. That is the proposal. Now, this was brought to the attention of the minister--
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I think I can wrap up with no problem. This is the most complicated part of it.
So the minister then had a chance to look at the proposal and he approved the proposal with conditions. He said: First of all, I won't approve it on a permanent basis, but I will approve it on a pilot basis, a three-year pilot; further, I want the pilot to be evaluated each year; and further, I want the pilot to be evaluated within the year, and if unintended effects occur--for example, we see distortions or problems we hadn't anticipated when the pilot was set up--we would take measures to try to correct that within the season; and regardless, we would evaluate it at the end of the year to make any changes required for the next year, and at the end of the three years we'd do a final evaluation.
That's what the minister said. The minister also made it clear this pilot would not affect first nations obligations, nor was it designed to deal with intersectoral allocations, issues between sport and commercial and so forth.
The pilot has been in place since May of this year. What are the results to date? We know one thing: the fishing season has been extended beyond what would have happened if we had not made the changes. We're still fishing today, and based on information we had going into the season, if we had not made the changes and we had continued with the status quo, we believe we would have closed in August or September.
All fisheries have been able to secure catch to allow their fisheries to continue, so they've been able to find bycatch to allow them to continue to their target fishing. Catch accounting has improved substantially. Bycatch levels have been reduced and the conservation targets for the stock of concern have been respected.
Further, fishermen can now sell their bycatch, because they account for it. They're getting money for fish they previously had to throw away; now they can keep and sell it, so that's boosted their profit or their revenue. Finally, the value for some species has actually increased. Ling cod has doubled with the integrated groundfish pilot.
There are some important issues. One is the cost of monitoring. There are new costs to the industry. For example, you either have an observer on board or you have a camera that observes your fishing and looks at the fish you bring over your ship. That's a new cost. And we have issues around how we can minimize those costs.
It's complex. This is a comprehensive, complex arrangement, and the reality is that even for the fishermen themselves, this requires adjustments. This raises the issue of resistance to change. It is new, it is different, it does require a learning period, and therefore transition issues and flexibility are important during this time.
There is a recreational concern by the recreational interests that the groundfish pilot may make it difficult for them to increase their share of groundfish species. That's a concern they've raised. And first nations are concerned that their interests not be compromised by the groundfish pilot.
In terms of next steps, as I've noted, we will be doing a review of the season. The season will be wrapping up in the next couple of weeks for some of the fisheries. We intend to construct a process and identify participants for a review of the first year to get ready for the second year of the pilot. Based on that review, we expect to make appropriate adjustments as we take into consideration other points people may raise about how the pilot has unfolded so far.
Thank you.
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Yes, they were. We looked at a number of options in considering the approach that was eventually adopted. Those were debated and discussed over the course of the three years, from 2003 to 2006, and the current approach was eventually adopted.
One of the things we looked at, for example, was just continuing the status quo, which was having monthly limits, trip limits, and so forth. But when we looked at that, we determined that if we continued that, we'd be stopping fishing early and that we'd actually be leaving target species in the water. So if you were a halibut fisherman, you'd be stopping your fishery when you still had catch left to catch but had exhausted your bycatch, so you couldn't fish any more. That wasn't very palatable to most commercial fishing interests.
We also looked at variations on that. We looked at whether we could, for example, extend monthly limits or trip limits to somehow get around the problem that I just described with the status quo. But in all cases, what we found was that nothing seemed to produce the results that the current approach seems to be able to produce. Every time we found a potential solution, we found potential problems.
That's why gradually, and over time, the industry moved to this comprehensive approach, saying, “We cannot not fix this piece by piece; we will have to do it comprehensively.” It was at that point that they then turned to look at the bigger, broader changes that eventually came to be called the groundfish pilot.
Initially, you can appreciate, the commercial interests preferred to look at other measures, and did. But because of the rationale I've just provided, they decided in the end that the reform that was necessary was the one that the minister adopted.
I will be brief. It's a short deck called “Update on the Fraser River Sockeye Fishery for 2006”. I'm on page 2.
The committee is aware that in designing our fishing plan we work with various stakeholders and interests, the fishing plan sets objectives, and so forth. Finally, the fishing plan is approved by the minister. Essentially, those are the points on slide 2.
Slide 3 talks briefly about the 2006 season. I'm going to cover the highlights. The pre-season prediction was for 17 million Fraser River sockeye to return. In reality, about nine million fish came back.
In season, adjustments were made because we weren't getting as many fish back as predicted, and in some cases the run sizes were reduced after the fisheries were concluded. I can speak in detail to that, if you ask questions later.
Then, the final point I wanted to make is on the spawning ground surveys. The spawning ground surveys are in progress now. They are not complete, so I cannot give you final figures for what the escapements or spawning look like for 2006, but at this point we're not aware of any conservation concerns or major problems.
That being said, our harvest of Cultus Lake sockeye, which was an objective before the season, is higher than the pre-season target.
Slide 4 outlines the catches. I'll go through those quickly. In 2006, the Canadian commercial catch was roughly 3.3 million fish, or about 71% of the commercial harvest. The Canadian recreational catch was around 182,000, about 4%. The first nations FSC--or food, social, and ceremonial harvest--was about 675,000, or roughly 15%. The first nations economic opportunities on the lower Fraser were about 450,000, or about 10%.
Slide 5 divides the catch between Canada and the United States. Members are aware that a Canada-U.S. agreement accords allocations between the two parties for Fraser River fish. In 2006 Canada harvested about 4.6 million Fraser River sockeye in total, the United States about 700,000.
In terms of next steps, we're in the process of reviewing what we call the escapement numbers; those are the number of Fraser River adult sockeye salmon on the spawning grounds. We're in the process of counting those fish and determining how many came back to spawn.
We will be reviewing the 2006 season, both within Canada and between Canada and the United States. Then we'll be starting to get ready for next year's fishery and starting to get groups together in the late fall and early next year to plan for 2007.
Thank you.
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The standing committee made a number of recommendations in several different areas--catch monitoring, enforcement, and improved stock assessment.
In the case of catch monitoring, we did augment the number of fishery officers. The minister made a decision at the beginning of the year to increase the number of fishery officers. In response to the standing committee, we indicated we would maintain at least the levels we had in 2006 in comparison with 2005, and we did that.
We also indicated we would augment our catch monitoring programs in 2006, and that took place.
In response to your advice, we also put in place a study of drift gillnets on the Fraser River by first nations. That was in place in 2006.
Further, we entered into more comprehensive arrangements with the Cheam first nations in terms of an enforcement protocol that improved our enforcement activities in that particular area.
My short response to your question is that overall we tried to respond to the advice and recommendations of the standing committee through stock assessment adjustments, improved catch monitoring, and enhanced enforcement.
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Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you once again, sir.
You're probably aware of our 2005 report regarding the 2004 Fraser River run. The committee made 12 recommendations. One of them, of course, was the use of drift nets above Mission. I'm just wondering, has your department, especially out there, accepted that recommendation?
We have, I believe, over 90 different first nations along the Fraser River, if I'm not mistaken, plus all the commercial activity at the mouth of the Fraser. And obviously, if you want to protect the integrity of the number of spawners going back up, you have to catch them in a way that's the most ecologically responsible. From my understanding, using drift nets is not one of the more ecologically responsible efforts at doing that.
I'm just wondering, is there a prohibition now on drift nets on the Fraser above Mission?
I have two related questions, and I think they'll be brief. They're mostly to give you an opportunity to expand a little on your observation that some of the downsizing of the runs was done after the fishing effort was completed, which obviously raises some questions.
I saw the numbers throughout the summer and I know we started at 17 million plus as an estimate. Early on, it was still around that, then it dropped to 15 million, then to 13 million. Then it went to 11 million, and now it's somewhere between eight million and nine million. The late run, for example, started out at 8.8 million and about halfway through the season it jumped up to 10.5 million, and then there was a lot of pressure from fishermen to increase their allocations and the TAC. Then it dropped back down to around eight million, and now, the last I heard, it was in around five million for the late run. Something somewhat similar happened with the summer run, and it never did materialize, I think.
I'm puzzled by that 10.5 million figure mid-season. I assume it was based on some sort of test fishing and other things that aren't completely the responsibility of DFO. How does that work? Don't we have a problem when we finally realize, after the season is over, that there weren't as many fish? Or were they somewhere and just didn't get past Mission? I guess that's my question.
Related to that, my recollection is that 2002 was a season when a lot of fish made it to the spawning grounds--millions. Could that have impacted at all on the run size in 2006?
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You've accurately described the season. I just want to step back a bit so that all the members understand how it's managed, and then try to answer your two questions.
First of all, we forecast how many fish are going to come back. That's the first thing we do. Those fish are out in the far north Pacific and then they migrate and come back into Canadian waters, and eventually into the mouth of the Fraser. In the process of coming back, as they enter into Canadian waters, we start to estimate how many fish are there. That process is controlled by the Pacific Salmon Commission, which is an international body that is charged with assessing Fraser River sockeye populations in season and then recommending to the two countries fishing arrangements to meet their allocation requirements. As the fish migrate back into Canadian waters and into the mouth of the Fraser, they're assessed. So in any one week that assessment can say, as Mr. Kamp has indicated, okay, we think there are 10 million; no, we think there are 7 million; no, we think there are 5 million; no it's back up to 8 million; it's back up to 11 million. That happens; it's normal management for Pacific salmon. It's dynamic; it changes from week to week or day to day. So that's the normal background work. This is different from groundfish, where you fix a catch or an allocation and you leave it for a year, or in some cases for years. In Pacific salmon, it's entirely the opposite. It's dynamic; it changes.
What happened this year is the Pacific Salmon Commission thought that of the pre-season estimate of late-timing Fraser, which was 17 million, 8 million of that population was late-timing sockeye, and they thought that population was actually 10 million, or even greater. The reason they thought that is because we had extraordinary catches in one of our commercial fisheries in one week. Extraordinary catches are that we caught, in the space of a day and a bit, three quarters of a million sockeye. In a small fishery, in a constrained time period, we caught a lot of animals. The commission thought that this was indicating that the run was not 8 million, but 10 million, or even more.
To top it off, of course, a number of commercial fishermen thought that the run was way greater than 10 million. I received a lot of calls saying “You need to open a fishery because there are millions and millions of fish that are here.” In any event, afterward, after the fisheries had been completed, the commission re-evaluated how many fish they thought were there and they downgraded the run from 10 million to five million, where it rests today.
The reason the run was overestimated was probably due to a couple of things, one of which I pointed out, which is that you had very high catches, which normally would have indicated a very strong return. But in this case, it may well have been that the way the fish behaved is they were very vulnerable, for some reason or other, and that this gave an indication, but it was a false indication.
What we have to do, in terms of the post-season review, is go back and look at what happened and ask ourselves how it happened and what we can learn from it for next year and for the years that follow. That was the same argument that we did in 2002, when exactly the reverse happened: a lot more fish got onto the spawning grounds than we anticipated. In that case there was an underestimate of the run. This is a continuing challenge in managing Fraser sockeye. You're always adjusting to make allowances for the behaviour of the fish. It's an argument for why you have to build in buffers and why you have to build in provisions to allow for some margin for error.
The final point I wanted to answer is could the reduction in the number of fish that came back this year be related to how many fish spawned in the brood year, which I think was your second question, Mr. Kamp. For the late-timing population, we think the answer is probably no. For the summer population, that might be the case. Both the summers and the lates came back at less than expected, so it may well be that for the summers it's the number of fish that were on the spawning grounds in the brood year, or the number of spawners in 2002; and for the late timing, it's probably related to the ocean conditions, which were very inhospitable for some parts of the Fraser River sockeye when they went out to sea as young fish. We think it's likely a combination of those two things, and we will be looking at that in the post-season review.