FISH Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON FISHERIES AND OCEANS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DES PÊCHES ET DES OCÉANS

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, May 27, 1999

• 0913

[English]

The Chairman (Mr. Charles Hubbard (Miramichi, Lib.)): I now call our meeting to order.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), our committee has been considering the sealing issues. We've spent some time doing that and working on the report we hope to have ready before we go home for the summer.

We were very much impressed with the fact that the FRCC has taken a position on the issue, and we'd like to welcome them to our meeting this morning. We'd like to hear their concerns and their overall position in terms of seals and how they affect the fishery on the east coast. We'd like to welcome this morning Fred Woodman, the chairman. Mr. Woodman, perhaps you could introduce the other members of your council.

Also with us this morning is a group from the northern area of Newfoundland. They'll be coming on screen here, hopefully, in a short time. We'll try to work both situations back and forth.

We'd like now to offer some time for you to make your presentation to the committee. Our committee is actually much larger than this, but because other committees are dealing with some important issues this morning, not all of our members are here. But they will be joining our group as we proceed between now and noon.

Welcome, Mr. Woodman. The floor is yours.

Mr. Fred Woodman (Chairman, Fisheries Resource Conservation Council): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think you introduced me, but just in case you didn't hear the chairman, my name is Fred Woodman and I am chair of the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council.

• 0915

With me today is Dr. Dan Lane from the University of Ottawa and Dr. George Rose from Memorial University in Newfoundland, who will be the science experts on the seal issue. I'll give you the layman's terms.

We're here today, sir, because you requested our presence to discuss the seal issue in Atlantic Canada, and I can assure you that we were quite pleased to be invited to discuss this topic.

As you're all aware, on May 6 this year the council publicly released its report to the minister on conservation requirements for groundfish stocks in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and for some Newfoundland cod stocks. In that report there was a chapter on seals. In many of our previous reports over the years we've asked the minister to move forward with measures to control and reduce seal populations. However, this is the first time we have been so direct in our views.

Unfortunately, much of the media attention that has arisen as a result of our recent recommendation on seals has not been accurate. It appears clear that some people have not interpreted our report quite correctly. It is also unfortunate that many of these same media representatives were not at our May 6 press conference in St. John's, Newfoundland, because at that time I made very clear exactly what we were recommending.

Today we hope to ensure that members of this committee clearly understand our position, and we will certainly be happy to answer any questions you have.

The mandate of the FRCC stipulates that the council may recommend any measures considered necessary and appropriate for conservation purposes. These include rebuilding groundfish stocks that have been seriously depleted to allow strong, sustained production of young fish.

As in previous years, the expanding seal population issue was raised at all the consultations we had Atlantic-wide as a frustrating impediment to the recovery of groundfish stocks. The accumulated evidence from scientific assessments as well as the consistent and continual information from fishers throughout Atlantic Canada are such that the FRCC is convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that the recovery of groundfish stocks, notably cod, will continue to be jeopardized if the seal herds remain at their current levels.

It should also be noted that the present population of seals, especially harps, are at or near their carrying capacity. Given this and based on current and historical data, the seal herds can be sustainable at a much reduced population level. It is also noteworthy that since the 1980s the grey seal population of eastern Nova Scotia and the gulf has increased by 700%.

In applying the precautionary approach to groundfish management, action must be taken immediately in order to improve opportunities for the conservation and recovery of cod and other groundfish stocks without awaiting for absolute scientific proof of the effects of seal predation.

As a guideline for the preparation of seal harvest precautionary management plans, we recommend that the seal herds be reduced by up to 50% of their current population levels in specific areas and that such reductions be studied intensively to monitor their impacts and form a basis for adaptive management. The FRCC also recommends that new resources be committed toward coordinating a seal harvest and strict monitoring, control, and enforcement of appropriate regulations in the harvest of seals, including utilization of the animal and humane harvests.

As well—and this is important—we recommend the establishment of a northwest Atlantic working group and coordinating team. They would be responsible for the organization and development of strategies for immediate seal reduction effort, promotion of humane harvesting techniques, and other activities the group would deem appropriate.

• 0920

We also recommend the establishment of an experimental grey seal harvest on Sable Island for the collection of scientific data and industry development activities. This experimental fishery should not exceed the current annual replacement value estimate of 20,000 Sable Island seals.

Lastly, we recommend that, where possible, a limited number of experimental seal exclusion zones be defined, for the purpose of preventing the expansion of seals into the fishery-designated bay or area in each of the following NAFO areas: 2J3KL, northern; 3Ps, southern Newfoundland; 4TVn, southern gulf; and 4RS3Pn, northern gulf. This should also apply off eastern Nova Scotia to 4VsW, the Sable Island area, although this area was not expressly mentioned in our recent report.

This last measure is designed to protect spawning and juvenile concentrations and prevent seals from inflicting high mortality on localized coastal aggregations of cod on which limited fisheries are being carried out.

The seals issue is too important—and too emotional for many—to get our recommendations wrong. Therefore, just to make it clear and to reiterate our main recommendations, we are saying that seal herds can be sustainable at much lower levels than they are now.

We're also saying that in specific areas, and where possible, herds should be reduced by up to 50%. We are not saying, as reported by some media, that there be a seal cull to reduce the total population by 50%.

We are recommending that a working group or coordinating committee be set up to determine where those areas are and to develop strategies on any such reductions.

Not everyone will agree with our position, as we found out very quickly after its release, but it's the position of this council.

I would like to draw an analogy on this issue. For decades, people said that smoking cigarettes was harmful to your health, even though there was no 100% irrefutable scientific proof. People knew this to be true. The balance of evidence was that smoking was harmful to your health.

In our view, even though there is no 100% irrefutable proof that the seal herds are having an effect on the recovery of groundfish stocks such as cod, anyone associated with this fishing industry knows that they do. The council knows that there's not 100% irrefutable proof of this, and there may never be such proof in our lifetime, but to ignore the evidence, to ignore the consistent and continual information from fishermen and scientists throughout Atlantic Canada, is to needlessly put the recovery of groundfish stocks in jeopardy.

In applying the precautionary approach to groundfish management, action must be taken immediately in order to improve the opportunities for conservation and recovery of cod and other groundfish stocks, without waiting for absolute scientific proof of the effects of seal predation.

Thank you. That's all I have to say. It's a clear statement. We are now at your disposal to answer any questions.

As I said, Dr. Lane and Dr. Rose are here with me, and I forgot to introduce my right-hand man, Chris Allen, who is our acting executive director.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Woodman.

The Reform Party are the official opposition, and again today they're not present with us at this committee. With the support of the committee, I would like to recognize Monsieur Bernier, of the Bloc Québécois, as the official opposition to begin the questioning.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvan Bernier (Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la- Madeleine—Pabok, BQ): We are certainly an official opposition, but we're perhaps not the Official Opposition in the sense intended by the parliamentary rules, Mr. Chairman.

In any case, the seal hunt and its impact on groundfish stocks are of great interest to the people who represent eastern Canada, a group to which I belong, as far as I know. I had skimmed through your report, gentlemen, because the media had made a big deal out of it. I reread it and I'm looking again at your presentation this morning.

• 0925

I'd like to begin at the end of your presentation, where you say that the Council knows that it does not have proof that seals are having a serious impact on the reproduction and increase of cod stocks and that it may not be possible to obtain such proof in the foreseeable future. Did your organization investigate a research methodology that would allow us to put together such proof and verify your claims? How much time should be allowed for obtaining proof? I know that we will never be able to get an absolutely clear proof that will satisfy all the ecologists on earth, but how long would it take the scientists available to you to produce proof? Would they need one year, two years, three years or five years? Do you anticipate that it would take that long? Is obtaining such proof unthinkable?

As I said, I come from the East. Seals are cute when they're young, but when they grow up, they eat a lot. I believe that it is important to obtain this scientific proof today because, each time we take a step, if our footing is not solid, when we have gone up a few steps of the ladder, the ladder will collapse. Instead of solving the problems, we will have aggravated them.

You said that we cannot establish proof in the foreseeable future. What do you and your scientists think about possible methodologies, the timetable and the deadline for obtaining this proof, if it can be obtained?

[English]

Mr. Fred Woodman: I'd like to pass that question to either Dr. Rose or Dr. Lane. That's in the scientific realm, so if you both have comments, I would like to hear them.

[Translation]

Mr. Dan Lane (Member, Fisheries Resource Conservation Council): If I may, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to answer this question.

This is a source of enormous frustration. Since the early 1990s, we have been asking scientists to find the right answer. It is clear that the presence of seals who eat fish stocks has a huge effect on the population of all species. We have gotten into a debate over the exact number of tons of fish, of cod, and so on, and the situation appears to change every year. Our best scientists, including Garry Stenson and Mike Hammill, who have already appeared before you, have been working for several years to this end. Our Council has reached the conclusion that, as in the case of the harmful effects of smoke in air, there is no right answer. Those who oppose controlling the population of a species like seal will always cite this lack of proof, which they use against us and those who are responsible for conserving fish stocks.

We would prefer to steer the debate in another direction, that is, to determine whether the seal population can be reduced without creating problems for these species, and whether we can save a species of fish which, according to scientific committees, is in danger. Scientists are saying that cod stocks are vulnerable. We believe that there is perhaps another way of approaching the problem. Therefore, we prefer not to answer this question to which there is no right answer.

Mr. Yvan Bernier: I understand the problem. I live on the coast in the Gaspé Peninsula and I see seal in places where I have never seen them before. That worries me, and I also notice that there is less and less smelt coming up the river in the fall and that there is less and less salmon.

• 0930

As you can tell, I'm on the other side of the fence and I'd like to see stocks recover. I realize that the credibility of the FRCC is at stake and that you have been under pressure from fishers in certain regions, who have told you that they have seen lots of groundfish and cod, and who have asked you to increase the quotas that they are allowed to fish this year. They too are telling you that it's quite clear, because they have seen the cod. You have been pressured in this way, you have kept your distance and said that management had to be based on a scientific protocol and follow a process that would not jeopardize everything else.

I tend to support your position. You have given the names of a few scientists. Of course, if we brought together 10 or 20 people in one room, there would always be one person who would act as the devil's advocate and attempt to undo what the others tried to build. Is there a way to bring together scientists who recognize the knowledge that each of them has, so that they could determine the approach to be adopted in order to develop such a framework?

Why do I frame the question in this way? It's because, in your report, you indicate that you would like to conduct a kind of targeted hunt, in order to reduce the herd in a specific region and measure the impact. I suppose that you have already planned a certain research protocol or methodology. Could you elaborate on this point so that we members—we who are supposed to be uninitiated in this area, although we can see both sides of the story—can recommend a direction to Parliament? That's how I would like you to help us this morning.

I've felt the same pressure from fishers, who tell me we have to get rid of the seal. However, I've also heard from seal hunters, who have told me we must be careful not to destroy the markets that they have developed and their image. That's why we have to walk on eggshells. As the saying goes, we shouldn't rob Peter to pay Paul. But if we don't do anything, we could lose everything.

I repeat my question. You've given us the example of specific sectors where you'd like to reduce the seal herds. Have you thought about developing a research methodology yet? What timetable might then be established to cover a larger area?

[English]

Dr. George Rose (Member, Fisheries Resource Conservation Council): Excuse me, I'll speak in Newfoundland English.

I'm going to try to answer your question with three different responses. One is basically what we do know, the other is what we don't know, and then the final, which I think is the heart of your question, is what we can do.

In fact I think we know a lot about seals and about what seals do. Certainly if we compare what we know about seals to what we know about many of our other marine species, in particular many of our commercial marine species, we know much more about seals than we do, for example, about lumpfish or turbot or redfish, or many of the other species we live on. So it isn't really correct to say we don't know a lot about seals. What is true is that the ante has been raised very high by lobby groups and certain organizations about what we have to know about seals before we can do much. That is true. And the ante is very high, very demanding, from the point of science.

Here's what we do know. We do know that seal populations, all of the major species in Atlantic Canadian waters, have been increasing for the last 10 or 20 years. We know that with a great deal of certainty. We also know a fair amount about the direct effects they're having in terms of how much fish they eat. We know they eat considerable amounts: hundreds of thousands of tonnes of commercial fish and forage fish. We know that with reasonable certainty, although there's a lot of error in those estimates. We have to acknowledge that, but we know they eat a lot.

• 0935

We can say with certainty that they are the single largest source of mortality for Atlantic cod, for example, far more than any other source we're aware of. That's the current state of scientific knowledge.

We also know that they're likely to have indirect effects. The largest prey, for example, of harp seals is capelin, which is also the major food for most of the cod stocks in Atlantic Canada. So they are having a direct impact on the major food of the cod. We also know that the capelin has been suffering, particularly in the lower north shore of Quebec and Labrador. The northern areas of the range have been suffering from low levels of capelin for the last decade.

We also know that seals are likely to cause indirect effects on codfish that are overwintering in cold waters. Codfish basically are very intolerant of cold waters. If they're chased around by predators they will die. So there can be indirect effects. This was witnessed. This should be well known. It was witnessed last winter in coastal Newfoundland in many areas, but it was only witnessed. The fact that this could happen is well known and has been well known by coastal peoples in Atlantic Canada for a long time.

We also know that if we look at geographic comparisons, in areas where seals are few, codfish are plentiful. That's the case in Atlantic Canada. The stock that has rebuilt the quickest, in 3Ps in southern Newfoundland, has very few seals in its range. On the other hand, stocks that have high levels of seals within their range are not reproducing well, are not growing.

We also know if we look wider, beyond our borders, if we look to Norway.... We're always looking to Norway, especially in Atlantic Canada, because Norway has a long history in a similar ecosystem to what we have in Atlantic Canada. In the Barents Sea, for example, their cod stock there has competed with our northern cod stock for 500 years for the crown of the king cod stock of the world. Their cod stock measures in the millions of tonnes now. They have been harvesting over 500,000 tonnes out of that cod stock. They have two million seals in their ecosystem, approximately. We have six million. So on a wider frame we also see this imbalance between the overall population levels of these two very important components in the ecosystem.

We talk about another thing we know about, sustainability. People are always talking about sustainability when it comes to seals or fish or whatever. Most people don't know what this concept really implies. Things can be sustainable at many different levels. There is no single level of sustainability. All sustainability really means is that you're not taking more than the natural rate of increase of the population. It's like having money in the bank—not that you get any interest nowadays, but when you used to get interest, if you had $10 in the bank and you got $1 back, as long as you didn't spend more than that $1, your $10 was sustainable. If you had $100 you could spend $10 and your $100 would still be sustainable. The same thing applies in natural populations. Sustainability can occur at many different levels. It really depends on how you want to look at it.

There may be levels in populations below which the population is not sustainable. That's the danger level. Unfortunately, we may have reached that level with cod populations in Atlantic Canada in some areas where they are not sustainable, where they cannot replace themselves. That's the real tragedy here. The seal populations are not in that state; they're nowhere near it. And that's why it's a little bit ironic that the seal populations and the idea of sustainability of the seal populations gets so much attention from the media, in the political circles, and from various scientists and people with agendas. The fish get no priority at all, even though when we look at this sustainability issue it's the fish that are not sustainable right now, not the seals. This is something we know.

• 0940

What we don't know is what the effect of removing some of these seals might be on the ecosystem, and in particular on the groundfish or cod populations. We do not know that. And it's the thing that is hung up in front of us every time this issue comes up of perhaps reducing seals to a level that is sustainable but lower than what they're at right now. We can't guarantee that we know the effect, and we never will be able to. The fact of the matter is in the natural world, in natural ecosystems, almost every situation is unique, including this one. There are no magic recipes for this. We cannot say that if we reduce seals by a certain amount, codfish will grow by a certain amount. That's impossible. It can never be done. To expect that is unrealistic.

In science, the key to getting a good answer is to ask a good question. That's just a bad question. It can never be answered. That's what we don't know.

Coming to the heart of your question, what can we do about it? One of the things the FRCC recommended was the setting up.... At the centre of the FRCC's recommendations was to take a scientific, experimental, and, in the words of some academics, “adaptive management approach” to this question. Some areas, for example, could have their seal populations reduced and monitored experimentally. This could be done on a small scale. For example, in certain bays in various areas where we know there are large populations of overwintering and spawning groundfish, seals would not be welcome.

How this would be done would have to be worked out by a committee of government and local people, and hunters and so on. If we could find a way to experimentally manipulate certain areas against other areas that would be used as scientific controls, we may be able to determine—and I would say for the first time ever if we could do this—what the exact effect of reductions or certain levels of reductions might be. This is something we can do. That's perhaps what we could do right now.

We're not suggesting, and the FRCC never suggested, a blind rush toward reducing seals anywhere. What we suggested was a carefully thought out, methodical, scientific plan that would try to use reductions as a study to learn what effect this might have. Once we knew that, we would be in a much stronger position to actually carry out broader scale activities in this area.

The Chairman: Thank you, Dr. Rose.

The Reform Party still aren't here. I'd tell the FRCC that our committee had intended, this past spring, to visit the area where the sealing was being conducted, and the Reform Party of course objected to that and wouldn't permit the committee to travel. They have three members on this committee, and I would hope that sometime this morning some of them would come to hear some of the evidence you are presenting.

With that, I will now turn to Mr. Provenzano.

Mr. Carmen Provenzano (Sault Ste. Marie, Lib.) Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Woodman, I was interested in your comments, which I understood to mean that with respect to the standards you need to meet before you take action, it has to be some long way between a gut reaction and short of proof positive. Would you agree with that?

Mr. Fred Woodman: Yes. Our recommendations stated that we have a select group that would monitor and set the strategy for reduction. We have some very capable individuals in Atlantic Canada and in Quebec who are quite familiar with the seal hunt, or the seal harvest, and would take action to plan the strategy taking into consideration the market element, taking into consideration the need to reduce, that maybe there are no markets, but there is a need to reduce the population.

I would like to go back to—

Mr. Carmen Provenzano: No, I would like to pursue this business of the standard, because I want to make sure I understand it. Comments by Mr. Rose relating to raising the ante I think tie in with your comments that we need a different kind of standard here. What Mr. Rose is saying is that we have environmental groups or animal protection groups that have raised the ante, which I think is really moving closer and closer to the proof-positive standard. I think this is what they're asking for, to take no action unless you have proof positive that the action is warranted.

• 0945

I take it that what you're saying is we need to have a different standard. I want to be able to state it in a way with which you agree. What I hear you saying is that when there are strong indicators pointing in a direction that action should be taken we shouldn't be looking for that scientific proof positive, which is a rather elusive standard, but that when the indicators are there, and these indicators are strong, if we're going to err, we err on the side where if we take the action some corrective measures can be taken, as opposed to waiting until there's proof positive and the damage that might occur is irreparable.

If that's the standard, if we're going to adopt a standard where we react when the indicators are there, when there are strong indicators pointing in a direction, it seems to me that if we had had that standard in place some years ago, then we might still have northern cod. Is it not the case that the ante Mr. Rose is talking about is the same kind of ante that was imposed on the government by the fishermen? So if we're talking of a new standard with respect to when we take action with seals, do we not have to implement a new standard across the board for when the indicators are there? For example, there were indicators with respect to northern cod, but not proof positive that action was warranted, and no action was taken.

You people are a fisheries resource conference conservation council. If we're establishing a new standard here, are we doing it across the board? Will it apply to fishers? Will it apply to environmental groups, who, I think it's quite correct to say, have raised the ante to a point where it's a difficult, if not impossible, standard to meet?

Mr. Fred Woodman: You've covered quite an area, but I will make an attempt and I'm going to ask Dr. Rose to finish up.

I'll use the words “balance of evidence”. That's why I was going to speak to Mr. Bernier's question, which also applies to yours. Dr. Rose mentioned the sustainability areas. For example, in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence the fisheries closed in 1994. There was a biomass level somewhere in the vicinity of 90,000 to 100,000 tonnes. If that biomass had matured today in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, you'd have a very mature spawning biomass in the vicinity of 100,000 tonnes plus.

Three years ago there was a positive recruitment of young fish coming in. The research people picked them up, science picked it up. Two years later, they had disappeared. They could have been eaten by other predators, but the balance of evidence states that seals were a major part, because in the Gulf of St. Lawrence you do have a major grey seal population. In the southern gulf it's not growing. Then flip the coin and in southern Newfoundland, where we had approximately the same biomass level enclosure in 1993, today we have a spawning biomass that is at historic levels. We have recruitment coming in and we have a total biomass level almost to the point of an historic high of 250,000 tonnes. So when the balance of evidence states that something is going on in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, seals could be—and are, there's no question in my mind—a major problem.

The other factor is that the Gulf of St. Lawrence stock is a migratory stock. Everything migrates in and out of the Gulf of St. Lawrence at some time during the year, and when they move out of the Gulf of St. Lawrence they move into eastern Nova Scotia, where we have the greatest grey seal herd in Atlantic Canada, something like 200,000. So the balance of evidence is pointing toward seals as a major predator at their current levels.

• 0950

Mr. Carmen Provenzano: Mr. Woodman, what I'm saying is if the government were to operate on the standard of balance of evidence and in a particular case imposed a quota on a species of fish on the balance of evidence, would your council support that kind of decision-making? That's what you're asking for with respect to the seals.

Dr. George Rose: In fact I think what you're suggesting is already the case. I think this has been a good thing for fisheries management.

You mentioned the northern cod. The northern cod was actually managed under what people thought at the time was very good absolute scientific evidence, the kind of thing that's being demanded for the seal situation right now. There were indicators, as you've said, indicators that came from industry, from fishermen, from other sources in science, that were contrary to that best scientific evidence at the time, and those were ignored. As it turned out, the best scientific evidence of the day was incorrect; the indicators were right, and management made the wrong decisions.

As a consequence of that, it has become commonplace now not only for Department of Fisheries and Oceans but for the FRCC to use many different indicators in the judgments of the state of all of our fish stocks. We no longer use one thing that you could point to and say this is the best scientific evidence, this is the best model, which is the way it was done in the past. We don't do that any more. We look at a whole suite of indicators, and in fact we come up with a balanced view based on those indicators, which is what you're implying is the state with the seals now.

Mr. Carmen Provenzano: But I'm not getting an answer to my question to Mr. Woodman. If the government were to make its decision on the balance of evidence, whether it be for a seal cull or whether it be to impose a quota on some fish species, would your council support that as a basis for decision-making by the government? Yes or no?

Mr. Fred Woodman: Yes, certainly we would. Our decisions are made basically on the balance of evidence. We have indicators we follow. For example, the seal population at its present level in the view of this council is an indicator as being an impediment to the groundfish stocks in Atlantic Canada. If for example we look at the Gulf of St. Lawrence today, for which our recommendation for the southern gulf is 6,000 tonnes, based upon the indicators that were put forward in the best judgment of the council we could not exceed 6,000 tonnes. So yes.

Mr. Carmen Provenzano: Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you, Carmen.

I apologize to the witnesses for the bit of activity here at the front table, but we've had difficulty. For some reason, the witnesses in Newfoundland didn't appear this morning, and we've had to cancel out on the video conferencing behind you. So that's what was going on here when you saw several of us consulting.

With that, Peter, we'll move to your question.

Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NDP): Thank you very much. And thank you, gentlemen, for appearing before our committee today.

In your opinion, and I'd like one very quick answer, what was the major reason for the cod collapse in the early 1990s? The major reason, number one. I know it's a variety of things, but in your opinion, what was the most major?

Dr. George Rose: It's an easy answer: it's overfishing.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Overfishing by people, right?

Mr. Fred Woodman: By the industry.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: People, right? I understand as the conservation council you also have to take into effect the livelihood of coastal communities and fishermen who live in those areas and their families. Obviously this is one of the reasons why you have your recommendation. But to Mr. Rose and Mr. Lane, who work for the universities, who pays your funding? When you do your research, where do you get your funding from?

Dr. George Rose: It comes from a variety of sources: provincial government, federal government, NSERC, some from industries. It's a variety.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Mr. Lane?

Dr. Dan Lane: In my case, the source of funding would come from competitive central agency funding such as the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.

• 0955

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Okay.

I noticed in your report as well you wrote a letter to the minister asking him about the erosion of science funding. Mr. Woodman wrote it and said: “The council wishes to draw your attention to the continued erosion of funds to DFO science.”

One of the major concerns of this committee is the fact that we don't believe DFO has the resources or personnel to do adequate studies in terms of science, when it comes to all aspects of the fish species. Would you say that's a fair statement?

Dr. George Rose: Absolutely. I agree.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: How many harp seals are out there now?

Dr. George Rose: The current estimate is about 5.5 million.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: How many hooded seals are there?

Dr. George Rose: There are maybe half a million, if you bump it up.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: How many grey seals are there?

Mr. Fred Woodman: There about 200,000.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: How many are harvested, in terms of a legal kill, for markets? How many are taken out? I know there's a quota of 275, but how many are actually taken out?

Dr. Dan Lane: The estimate for total mortality is approximately 400,000 for all seals.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Does that include what was legally taken for markets and accidental kills as well?

Dr. Dan Lane: Those struck and lost would be included in there, including Greenland catches.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Is your recommendation for the 50% reduction in concert with other countries where there are seals in the North Atlantic region, such as Greenland, Iceland and the United States? Is this just a Canadian decision or was it made in concert with other countries as well?

Dr. Dan Lane: We know that activity is occurring in other countries, such as Iceland and Norway and in the North Sea, where seals are taken. It's not what you would call a totally sanctioned well-known process, the way it is on this side of the water, but it does occur and has been documented. We know it happens.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: You also say in one of your paragraphs that the media are saying there was to be a seal cull to reduce the population by 50%. That's not what you're saying. You're saying “where possible, to reduce the herds up to 50%”.

Mr. Fred Woodman: That's right.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Yet when the minister was before us he said “I have no ideological objection to a cull”. Although you haven't said the word “cull”, the minister believes one of the recommendations is to have a cull. I want to use that word specifically, because when Mr. Efford was here with his committee he would not say the word “cull”. He said it in Newfoundland, but he wouldn't say it here.

So are you asking for a cull—yes or no?

Dr. Dan Lane: I can take a crack at that, Fred.

Mr. Fred Woodman: Read the recommendation first.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I did.

Mr. Fred Woodman: They recommended “a northwest Atlantic working group and coordinating team responsible for the organization and development of strategies for immediate seal reduction”. So that group itself would determine whether it would be a cull, a 25% reduction, or up to a 50% reduction, and in what areas. I think the expertise is around to give us those answers.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Mr. Woodman, I appreciate that. But you're not saying the government should help develop markets for the seals; you're just talking about a reduction. In your opinion, how would they be reduced? Would there just be a bunch of boats out there? Would there be helicopters? Would they machine-gun them down? Would they be slaughtered on sight? Exactly how would you recommend they be taken out?

I ask that because your recommendation is very serious. My party and I and this committee don't have a problem with the sound scientific management where there are markets for the products of the seals. We don't have a problem with that. But nowhere do you recommend or even advise that the Canadian government should be seeking markets for these seals. You're just asking for a reduction.

Have your recommendations taken into consideration what effect it will have on IFAW and other groups like that, in terms of their hyperbole and the media attention to this? Have you taken into consideration the damage it may do to parts of Newfoundland and Labrador in their exports of other fish species, like shellfish, if Europe or the United States puts on a trade ban because of this? Did you taken those aspects into consideration when you made this recommendation?

Mr. Fred Woodman: Yes, sir, we have taken all of that into consideration. We made a serious recommendation; we realize that. But as a council we're not recommending marketing or developing markets. We have, in our previous reports, asked the minister to develop markets to reduce the seal herds and expand the market for seal products.

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On the paragraph I just quoted from, this group will determine whatever strategies are needed, whether it's expanded markets—whatever is required. The expertise is out there in this industry to handle the situation. Again, we are promoting humane harvesting techniques—not Rambo killings—and other activities the group deems appropriate. This paragraph is key to our recommendation.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: But you're asking for, where possible, a reduction of 50%.

Mr. Fred Woodman: Up to 50%.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: The sealing association now says there aren't markets for the seals they already captured this year. There just aren't enough markets out there for their products.

So you're asking for a reduction. I suggested there are six million seals and you want them reduced by two million or three million. Is that what you're asking for? If not, by how many seals are you asking the population to be reduced? Are you saying 50% of six million?

Dr. George Rose: No. We're making no absolute recommendations on how many seals should be taken. That's quite clear.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: You said up to 50%.

Dr. George Rose: Let me give you an example of how the 50% might apply. Let's take a bay like Bonavista Bay on the northeast coast. It's a known over-wintering and spawning ground for codfish. It was also the site of the slaughter by seals of untold thousands of codfish last winter.

Seals are smart predators. They learn where their prey are easy targets. It's quite possible that a very small number of seals, certainly not the whole five million, are in Bonavista Bay—there may only be a few thousand. If 50% of those were taken out of Bonavista Bay, it might make a substantial difference to the mortality of the spawning codfish.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Dr. Rose, I'm asking a specific question. How many seals—in numbers, not percentages—are you recommending be taken out? Is it one million, two million...?

Dr. George Rose: I already answered that. We're not making any recommendations.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: But sir, there weren't markets for the 200,000 seals that were taken out already, so there certainly won't be markets for a couple of million seals. What is to happen to the seals that are taken out? Will they just be killed and allowed to float to the bottom?

Dr. George Rose: This is entirely a matter of scale. If two or three seals were taken out of Cannings Cove and Bonavista Bay, they would probably be eaten by local people and it would not be a problem. If hundreds of seals or a thousand seals were taken out of Bonavista Bay, they'd probably be eaten by local people and it wouldn't be a problem. We only get into a problem in this when we're talking about a massive increase in the harvest. We have not made any comment on that specifically. It is up to a committee to decide how best to implement this.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Dr. Rose, earlier it was said that in Norway they're harvesting large amounts of cod and they have around two million seals. Is that correct?

Dr. George Rose: Yes.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: You're saying in Canada we have six million seals.

Dr. George Rose: Yes.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: You're asking for a reduction of 50% in certain areas, as you just said, with three seals here and one thousand seals there, but in reality when you say 50%, the perception to the average Canadian is that you're asking for a massive reduction of two million to three million seals. If that is indeed the perception out there, what is to happen to those two million or three million seals?

Dr. George Rose: I can only answer that if that is the perception, the perception is incorrect.

The Chairman: Thank you, Peter. We will come back.

Peter's had his time and he'll have more later. It seems as if we're talking about a battleground and we're trying to push the predators back.

Wayne, do you have some questions now?

Mr. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.): Yes, Mr. Chairman, I do.

As you're well aware, we've had a lot of mixed information relative to scientific advice, etc., on seals before this committee. I have two questions, one dealing with science and the other dealing with the recommendations.

I'd just like to give you an overview of some of the things we're hearing. You say in your report on page 11 that seal herds consume tens of millions of juvenile cod and millions more of adult spawning cod and that seals are indisputedly a key factor in reducing the recruitment of cod to the fishery. The report goes on to say that the FRCC is convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that the conservation of groundfish stocks, most notably cod, will continue to be jeopardized if the seal herds remain at their current levels.

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When Minister Anderson was before the committee on May 6, he said the seal diet is probably only 3% or 4% cod, or maybe less. When Dr. Lavigne was before the committee on April 13 he said, and I quote:

All scientific efforts to find an effect of seal predation on Canadian groundfish stocks have failed to show any impact.

That was the conclusion, he said, of 97 scientists who signed a petition in 1995. There is still no scientific evidence to suggest harp seals are impeding the recovery of northern cod or any other cod stock.

Pat Chamut, assistant deputy minister, told the committee on the same day that it's extremely difficult scientifically to come up with estimates of the amount of fish that seals actually eat and what the consequences of that would be. He said:

We know seals eat fish, but we know they're primarily targeting forage species such as capelin. They also eat Atlantic cod, but we know that the overall percentage of Atlantic cod in the diet of harp seals is generally low.

I put that on the record to tie it all together. That's the kind of mix of opinion we're getting from scientists out there, the minister himself, and the department.

If this committee makes a recommendation somewhat along the lines you're talking about—and I heard Dr. Rose earlier—upon what scientific evidence do you make your recommendations? How can we back it up in terms of science? On the indicators you're talking about, I can reason with that approach. There are indicators out there that we ignored in northern cod in the past, but maybe we can't ignore them in terms of seals. But can you further the scientific evidence, so we can deal with this effectively on the basis of science?

Mr. Fred Woodman: I will take the first stab at it. Just look at the seal population, in general, in Atlantic Canada at the moment. Nobody questions the fact that they're at historically high levels. Fish populations, except for southern Newfoundland, are at historically low levels. On the question of whether science can understand how much fish or how much cod is taken in the diet of any other species, they can. It's been done and it should be continued.

The fact remains that when they do an analysis on the layers of fat on a seal, they can take it down, by layers, to exactly what species of fish was eaten at any given time. On the point that codfish is only 3% to 4% of their diet, when seals whelp, or have their young, they become voracious eaters. I was in the gulf myself in 1998. We flew over the gulf—the Bay of Chaleur and Miramichi Bay. The scientist who was aboard estimated that were around 500,000 seals. Well, if 3% of their diet in that area is cod, in an area where you have the lowest biomass levels in history, common sense would tell me seals are having an impact.

It would be automatic that the less prey there is, the better the chance the predator has of taking that stock down. That's where we're coming from. If someone from the science side wants to give a science perspective to it, then.... It's factual. The quotes that were made in our report here were taken directly from the stock status report. It estimates that 80 million juvenile cod were taken out of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. There's always a variance, the commonest level, in that, but nevertheless that came from the stock status report. If it's 50% of that, there's still way too many juvenile fish coming out of that resource, based upon the number we have, to build stock back up.

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That's from a layman's perspective, where we sit. I think George or Dan can give a science slant to it.

Dr. George Rose: One point that comes to mind is that the diets of seals have been studied quite a lot. Actually, over the years they've been studied more than the diets of most of the other animals in the ocean that we have to deal with. And it's fairly well accepted, I think, that your average seal—if there is such a thing—eats about a tonne a year. We can use that as a ballpark figure.

So 3% doesn't sound like much, and some people will just dismiss this and say it's nothing. Well, what is it? What is 3%? Three percent represents about 30 kilograms a year, which is about 100 juvenile codfish per seal per year. Now, if there were only a few thousand or a few hundred thousand seals eating 100 juvenile cod each per year, it probably would not be a major problem. But there are six million eating 100 juvenile codfish a year. And even that, if we had the northern cod stock as it was historically and the other cod stocks as they were historically, in the range of millions of tonnes, might not be a problem.

Perhaps when we talk about sustainability, this would be within the sustainable limits of what codfish populations could produce. The problem right now is that it likely isn't. And that's why we may be seeing in various areas cod stocks that should be increasing, because their natural rate of increase should allow them to increase, and in fact they are not.

Now, we can't prove this, and as I tried to point out about what we don't know in my opening remarks, we'll never be able to prove that. We simply cannot do it. So to ask that question is like closing the door on the argument. And if that's what we want to do, well, let's just close the door.

Mr. Wayne Easter: Just to sum up, Mr. Chairman, I don't think we want to close the door on the argument. That's the last thing we want to do. But if we make decisions, we want to back them up. You refer to a number of reports in chapter 2, and what I'd like to know is where in those reports we can find support for the conclusions you come to—to try to back it up with science. You can think about that for a minute.

The last point I want to raise—before I get cut off here—is that I think it's interesting what's happening in 3Ps. You're suggesting—and I really don't know, although I've tried to check this out with some other sources—in your recommendation on 3Ps cod that cod levels have increased back to, I think, close to normal. You also make the point in your seal chapter that in the area 3Ps, it's the only area that does not have have a large number of seals occurring within it.

That's interesting, and it's a significant point, which I think leads me to or persuades me in some way on your fifth recommendation, that maybe we need to do some experimental work in some other fishing zones to see what would happen to cod if seals were reduced in those areas. We couldn't, as Peter wanted to do, get exact numbers on the number of seals that would have to be dealt with.

In any event, before we get that far—that's an indicator that I think we can manoeuvre—I would like to know in terms of your recommendation, and you refer to a number of reports, what support there is to come to some of the conclusions based on science that you have from those reports. We went to them, and we can't determine them.

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Mr. Fred Woodman: I think, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Easter, either George or Dan can provide some information with respect to science and where we're getting a lot of information.

Dr. Dan Lane: Let me take this crack at that question by first of all saying that, as George has already mentioned, this is perhaps not the right question to ask. Nevertheless, you have to remember that the scientists you've seen, the sealing scientists who have come here and talked to you about those specific questions you're asking, look at their particular problems in a macrocosm. They look at the whole issue of the seal population. They do not look at what happens in individual bays or what the effect of seals up the Miramichi are—that scale of question.

What we're proposing in our recommendations in an overall way is to take that action of the scientists and flip it on it on its head and say, let's go to into a bay and say we cannot allow mortality to happen on cod in this bay, because the seals' mortality is too high. So let's do an experiment there. That experiment hasn't taken place. We need to do it now, and we're suggesting that in some areas up to 50% of the seals should be removed so we can actually look at that effect. It's not enough just to count 5.5 million harp seals across the North Atlantic or 200,000 seals off Sable Island. We know the numbers are going up. It's exponential in growth; that's clear. And the impact is implied, but not detailed—the same criticism that IFAW and other groups can use against that claim. So we have to get down to looking at these base levels, and I think that approach will lead to a scientific development on a local level that will enable us to say more, just as 3Ps is in a larger level.

The Chairman: Thank you, Wayne.

Mr. Matthews.

Mr. Bill Matthews (Burin—St. George's, PC): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to welcome our witnesses and apologize for being a bit late.

It's a very interesting discussion, I must say, and it's difficult for someone representing a riding in Newfoundland not to become quite emotional about this. Because of what's happening to our people, we find it very difficult to be laid back and rational sometimes, because the doors we're closing are on communities in Newfoundland and Labrador because of the downturn in our groundfish industry. The out-migration is staggering, and a lot of our communities are on the brink of collapse.

In relation to what you said, Peter, I just look at page 3, where the FRCC recommends new resources be committed, and it goes on to say “appropriate regulation in the harvest of seals, including utilization of the animal”. So they are recommending that. And for the last 20 years there's been consistent reference to total utilization of the animal, regardless of what the numbers are. That's been the thrust of us all.

I find, Mr. Chairman, the recommendation about the experimental seal exclusion zones to be quite interesting, to be very honest with you. I don't know if you can expand on that or not. But listening to Dr. Rose and Dr. Lane, it sounds to me like a very interesting concept, because of the nursery areas or whatever is there. If we could exclude or limit the number of seals in those areas then we may see some rejuvenation. I'm wondering if, when I finish, you could expand on that. Basically what you're saying is to exclude up to 50%—up to 50%. You're not saying 50%; you're saying up to. It could be 20%, 30%, or 40%. I think that's something that perhaps the committee could latch on to and perhaps recommend to the minister, because I would think the minister's looking for some ways around this as well.

I found, Mr. Chairman, Dr. Rose's reference to sustainability quite interesting. We're talking six million seals now. The population has doubled, what, in the last ten years or so?

Dr. George Rose: It's tripled in twenty years.

Mr. Bill Matthews: It's tripled in twenty, so it's obvious to me that there's no question of sustainability with the seals. But you point out that some of our cod stock levels have dipped so low they may not be sustainable, and when you look at.... We've had a moratorium since 1992, 1993.

Mr. Fred Woodman: 1992.

Mr. Bill Matthews: 1992. We don't see very much rejuvenation or regeneration in our northern zones. Maybe you've hit the nail on the head, I would say here, with that. Perhaps they're so low they won't rebound. I thought for a number of years, as a native Newfoundlander and someone who follows this very closely, that in a four- or five-year period we would see significant rejuvenation. But that's not happening. Maybe you can tell us the reason for that this morning.

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Basically, parliamentarians and the Government of Canada I guess have a choice to make. Are we more concerned with the sustainability of a six-million-seal herd, or the sustainability of fish resources and people in the communities?

I listened very carefully to what Mr. Provenzano had to say. I think we've ignored far too long the indicators and the balance of evidence. To be very honest with you, I say that as a Newfoundlander and Labradorian, but also as someone who deals with problems every day there related to the crisis we have. I think we've gone too long without dealing with it. I strongly urge the committee to take very seriously the recommendations of the FRCC and to incorporate some of the recommendations in a report to the minister. In my view, I don't think we can afford to wait any longer.

They're my only comments, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. Fred Woodman: I'll make a comment to Mr. Matthews.

We've looked at the records that showed us that after the Second World War, in the early fifties, it was around three and a half million seals. Looking over the next twenty years, up to the time of the ban on sealing, it was around two and a half million sustainable. Our cod stocks at that particular point in time were at historically high levels as well.

Last year, when science made a presentation to us, it was another fact. There are so many factors I could mention of things that have happened over the last few years of the FRCC. Natural mortality in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the northeast coast of Newfoundland has doubled, and in some cases tripled, with no fishery. Northern cod, 2J3KL, we'll probably make a report to the minister this week. We will, I guess, on northern cod. It's a sad commentary.

This year we recommended.... The industry and science together carried out an industry and science survey on northern cod offshore with three of the most experienced skippers onboard to hunt fish—not scientifically, to hunt fish. In two weeks of fishing, the grand total was 861 cod. We looked at what's floating down on the ice floes over time right now, and it's receding at this moment. Yet two or three weeks ago we were looking at two, three, or four million seals covering that same geographic area while we're trying to rejuvenate or restore a cod stock that will sustain the northeastern coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. The balance of evidence tells me that the predator and prey relationship is way out of balance, and that's where we're coming from.

We're trying to put a balance in the ecosystem. As I say, scientifically we don't know what we're on here, but this is one step. As a council, we were obligated to make that recommendation to help to restore cod stocks or groundfish stocks to sustainable levels. In the six years and seven seasons of the moratorium, in the case of northern cod in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, we have not seen any degree of recovery compared with what it used to be just a few short years ago in the 1980s. That's why we're making these recommendations. They are strong, and we hope they will be carried out.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Woodman.

Mr. Bernier.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvan Bernier: I'd like to make one last comment. I've listened to all the questions. It's nice to see the issue from different angles. I see that everyone is trying to find out where the truth lies in this much-talked-about balance between seals and the sustainability of groundfish stocks.

I would like to come back to what you said when you were talking about Norway. I don't know whether some of you know more about the situation there. In Norway, there are 2 million seals, but there are 6 million here. Although I'm new to the seal hunt issue, I imagine that the Norwegians still hunt seal. I'd like to know whether their sealskin sales also dropped when Brigitte Bardot came on the scene. What prevented their seal population from increasing like ours? Do we have any data on this? Have they carried out any culling similar to what you have recommended in specific sectors? I'd like to know whether there are comparable situations in other countries, whether people have already experienced the same problems as us and how they dealt with them.

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I too would like to know why their seal population is only 2 million, whereas ours is 6 million. I'd really like to know how the two are related. Why is it that their population did not increase? Did they start off with a much smaller population, when they began to hunt seal? I don't know.

[English]

Dr. Dan Lane: I'm not sure that we have that kind of information. I know personally I do not. It was unfortunate that perhaps you couldn't have quizzed Tina Fagan or perhaps Alison Beal and Brian Roberts on this when they were before you.

I simply don't know enough about the international market for seal pelts to know what the contribution of other countries is, including Norway. I'll leave it to....

Dr. George Rose: I also am not an expert on the commercial aspects of this, but certainly from the fisheries side and the biological side, Norway has always been the world leader in seal products, shall we say. This is historic. In fact, in Newfoundland we used to—I think we probably still do—bring Norwegians in for expertise in tanning hides and things like this. They are the acknowledged world experts on this. They've always had a seal harvest. I'm not sure what the level is right now. But certainly the Norwegians, in terms of the interactions between different species, predator and prey species in the oceans, are perhaps the world leaders in terms of scientific thought on these. They take these factors into account in their fisheries management, things that we in Canada are only beginning to think about.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Yvan.

Mr. Yvan Bernier: I'll ask one last question, Mr. Chairman.

I will leave the sealing issue for a moment. I'm still trying to understand the situation with regard to the reproduction of our groundfish stocks. In the documentation on the stocks, I read that the groundfish biomass in the Gulf—and I don't know whether this applies outside the 200-mile limit—has been subject to cyclical fluctuations in the past. These cycles may last 20 years.

I'm not a fisherman, although there have been some in my family. In the early 1980s, I believe that we were at a low point in the cycle, but it was nothing like what we have today. How do you interpret this with your mathematical models? Is there a connection, a correlation? It seems to me that some of the data goes back almost to the start of the century. We can go back a long ways if we consult the logbooks of French ships, and we can detect certain cycles. Is our information precise enough to identify the causes of the low points in the cycles over the years? We are pointing our finger at seals this time. Are data comparisons done for this?

[English]

Dr. George Rose: The answer is yes. The data, such as we have it, has been studied by a number of people.

One of the problems with this whole question is that the quality of the data is only really strong in recent history. In Newfoundland and around the gulf, in all of the fisheries—well, between Quebec and the gulf and Newfoundland fisheries, which are probably the best documented of what we have—all we have really are landings of commercial catches, and they go back to approximately the mid-1500s. Those have been reconstructed. And yes, you're quite right, there are periods of high productivity in the ocean; there are periods of low productivity. A lot of these probably relate to fluctuations in the whole ocean climate of the north Atlantic, and this is fairly well understood and accepted. But what we've seen or what we've witnessed recently is a decline to levels that have never been witnessed before.

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The drops that occurred from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s are unprecedented in anyone's knowledge base for our North Atlantic fisheries. So this is not just another one of these poor periods of productivity, not just another down in the cycle. And clearly—and this question was answered earlier—the prime cause of this was overfishing, probably overlaid on a period of poor productivity. That is, the fish stocks got the double whammy. They were in a period of poor productivity, they were fished incredibly hard, and many stocks collapsed. That's about as simply as I can state it.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Yvan, a short question?

Mr. Yvan Bernier: I'll try to keep it short. There's a question that's been bothering me for sometime, and I'd ask Mr. Woodman or Mr. Rose to answer. I will go off the beaten path this morning and talk about cod catches. I seem to remember that Mr. Woodman told us that a catch of 6,000 tons was being recommended this year. What is the problem affecting the biomass? We've already eliminated the fisher who was the predator. What's going on? Which age class is missing? Could you explain to me, in two or three sentences, where the problem lies? Are adult cod—the large fish that are 8 or 9 years old and can have baby cod—present in sufficient numbers? Is there a shortage of spawning stock, or is it young cod that are missing because the seals are feeding on them? Is there a connection between the two?

[English]

Mr. Fred Woodman: I'd like to make one comment with respect to the biomass in the southern gulf—your area. As I said—I think I said it earlier—that fishery closed in 1994.

Mr. Yvan Bernier: Yes.

Mr. Fred Woodman: We did have a very good biomass level there. That biomass has increased by weight, not by number. The irony of it all is the fact that we do have a very mature biomass in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence. We're talking about fish who are eight, ten years old that should be making a great contribution now. The quantity of those fish should be great. The environmental conditions have changed, over the last two or three years especially. We're now into a warming trend. We have temperatures still cooler in the gulf, say, than on the shelf of Newfoundland, Labrador, and southern Newfoundland...but still coming back quickly, when we should be seeing recruitment coming in.

We think the recruitment is coming in. They picked them up once. They did not enter the fishery. Something happened. Most of us think we know what happened. A lot of them were consumed by seals. Maybe there were environmental conditions as well, somewhat, but not to the degree where you have such a mature biomass that should be making a contribution.... There seems to be some recruitment coming everywhere else. But in that particular area, where we have three species of seals, the stock is not recovering.

For a scientific perspective, I'll hand it over to either George or Dan.

Dr. George Rose: Well, I can make a couple of comments on that. First of all, as to what age of cod they're likely to have an effect on, it depends on the species. The grey seals eat bigger, older fish on average than the harp seals. The harp seals primarily prey on juveniles. These are likely two- and three-year-olds. They're little fish about this long. That means when you're talking about weight, there are a lot of them. It takes three or four of those to make one kilogram. It's not like big fish. So you're talking about a lot of individual animals that comprise the seal diet. But it's not as simple as that either.

In Newfoundland years ago we used to have a soft drink, and the logo on the soft drink was a seal with a big codfish in his mouth, right by the belly. Back then everybody knew that seals ate codfish. Now we've been told they don't. Well, people around the bays still know that they do. They can see it. Now we're in the video age, where you can't get away from these damn things, so we can go out and actually video this happening and it can be shown around the world. But that doesn't mean it just started.

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Although their primary diet is juveniles, harp seals are capable also of killing and consuming large codfish, spawning codfish, which is a particularly sensitive issue now for two reasons. One, because it's happening on everybody's doorstep on the northeast coast, and you can imagine how fishing families and fishing communities, whose livelihoods have been taken away from them—they are not allowed to fish themselves—feel when they have to sit and watch this. How would I feel? How would you feel in a situation like that? If a band of timber wolves came into your backyard and ate your dogs, your cats, your hamburgers, or whatever, how would you feel about that? So that's one problem.

But at the biological level, harp seals are capable of taking a very large number, killing a very large number. They don't really take them, because they just kill them and eat the soft parts, basically the liver, which is another issue, because those parts never show up in the scientific data. Scientific data on seals is based on hard parts, basically little bones that occur in the ears of fish and so on. That will never show up in the data. So that's why we don't have any record. That's why science tells you that seals do not kill adult fish, even though it was on our soft drink bottles a hundred years ago. So that's another issue.

Along that northeast coast, we are.... As the FRCC, one of our main concerns with northern cod is to protect the spawning aggregations, not only from seal predation, but from human fishing as well, and we feel that probably the most important thing we can do to rebuild the northern cod is to protect those spawning aggregations from all sources of mortality, including man and seals.

The Chairman: Thanks, Dr. Rose.

Wayne, you have a question. And after that, Peter, I'll go back to you.

Mr. Wayne Easter: Yes. When you go to your recommendation 5 and the seal exclusion zones.... If you go to the back, where the NAFO map is, you're recommending 2J, 3KL, 4TVn, 4RS, and 3Pn. Why did you come to those particular conclusions in those specific areas, and are you talking about just the bays and inlets? Why have you picked those particular exclusion zones? When you look at it on the map, it's basically all of Newfoundland, a bit of southern Labrador, and the gulf. Why that particular area, in terms of recommending exclusion zones?

Mr. Fred Woodman: The areas we recommended here are all the NAFO areas where we have—

Mr. Wayne Easter: Yes. I've just gone to the map. I've drawn it out on the map, Fred.

Mr. Fred Woodman: Yes. Mr. Easter, what we've said here is in 2J, 3KL.... As George said a few minutes ago, we know where there are specific concentrations of spawning fish. For example, after trawling for years, we finally found an aggregation of cod in Trinity Bay, on the northeast coast of Newfoundland. There are somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 tonnes of mature fish there—spawners. That's an area that would be excluded. That would be an excluded zone. We could go into, I guess, Chaleur Bay in Quebec, and look at that being an area.

When we get into the gulf, you would have to get science, managers, and the fishing community involved. It would be the same on the northwest coast of Newfoundland, in the northern gulf area. You would have areas there that would be defined, where you know you have concentrations. Here again, that strategy would be developed by this group of individuals that we hope the minister would put together to challenge that.

Mr. Wayne Easter: And do you think this could be done for next year?

Mr. Fred Woodman: Hopefully.

Mr. Wayne Easter: Why I ask the question is that I'd like to know, if we were to narrow this down and pin down three areas as a pilot project, in terms of looking at this in the very short term, what the most crucial areas for those seal exclusion zones would be. What I'm saying is if it all can't be done, what would be the most important areas to target in terms of a pilot project and a seal exclusion zone? You may not want to answer that right now, but if you can't, could you get back to us on it?

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Mr. Fred Woodman: I think either George or Dan could answer that.

Dr. Dan Lane: Actually, Mr. Chairman, we've just opened up our currently-under-embargo 2J3KL recommendations. For example, you'll notice in the seals recommendations you're reading that it talks about exclusive areas in each of those larger zones. And when we talk about 2J3KL, we don't specifically refer to seals, but there is a stock—actually, we call it George's stock—of George Rose's stock of codfish in Smith Sound, because George knows probably every fish in that sound. That is an area that we feel has to be protected. George will probably want to tell you more about that directly.

Mr. Fred Woodman: That would be a candidate for protection.

Mr. George Rose: The Smith Sound and Trinity Bay—some of you may know where it is—is a beautiful fjord on the north coast of Newfoundland. For some reason that we don't really understand, it's the home of the largest known spawning concentration of northern cod that we have left. It has been there since 1995. It's spawning there; it's growing. This is one area that we know about—I stress, that we know about—because our knowledge of the present distribution of the northern cod on the northeast coast and in other areas is totally inadequate right now. This is why, as was pointed out before, we are highly supportive of increased research and are really almost dumbfounded by what's been happening with DFO budgets recently in terms of doing research at a time when it's so badly needed.

In any case, we do know some things, and we do know about Smith Sound and Trinity Bay, primarily because my research group has taken this on as almost a cause for the northern cod in the last decade. That area needs to be protected if we are to rebuild the northern cod. It may be only one of many, but you asked for examples and that's an example. It's a relatively small area. We're not talking about the whole northwest Atlantic; we're not even talking about the whole of Trinity Bay. There may be five, six, ten other areas like that on the northeast coast that we could identify, and that's what we were referring to as exclusion zones.

We would like, as a scientific recommendation, for anything like this to be done as a scientific experiment, so that we can learn as we go along. That's what adaptive management is, and that's precisely what the recommendation from the FRCC was supposed to put forward.

Mr. Wayne Easter: To conclude, that makes sense, to me at least. But I'd like further areas of recommendation at some point in time, if you could get them to us, and maybe we can deal with that. If you look at the big picture, Peter's question earlier on the 15% cull, I think you called it, if you look at it globally, then that is going to be pretty difficult for us to sell, so to speak, based on a lack of science. But if we're looking at bays, etc.... Even the IFAW back in 1969—and we went back on that research.... Brian Davies said then, before the fisheries committee in 1969, that a sustainable seal herd was 1.7 million. We're now sustaining a herd at 4.8 million, but your figures are saying 6 million. I think ours are showing somewhere around 5.2 million.

So the global picture is one thing, but if we can narrow the focus down to protecting spawning in bays and inlets and can back that up, then I think it's possible to look at some of these seal exclusion zones. But we can't do it all.

The Chairman: Peter.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I just want to reiterate what my colleague from Newfoundland has stated, and I don't believe there's anyone in this room who fights harder for his people than Mr. Matthews. But Newfoundland is not isolated when it comes to the downturn of the fishery or the predation of seals or man. In Cape Breton, in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, P.E.I., the Gaspé and Îles-de-la-Madeleine areas, there are many people suffering as well.

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I appreciate, Dr. Rose, what you just said about the zones and having the resources and the personnel to do your job. We've been fighting for that since we got elected. DFO cannot continue the cuts to itself; it must get the funding and the allocation of resources and personnel to do the job you're asking for, so that we don't have these arguments in the future and so we have sound science based on facts and not on speculation.

You said these exclusion zones would be.... For one thing, we're talking about keeping seals away from those zones so you can, on a trial basis, carry out experiments as well. Would that also include...? Let me put it this way, and I'll lead to my question in a second. If an oil and gas company wanted to do seismic drilling in Smith Sound, would they be excluded as well? The reason I ask that is because Corridor Resources was just given leases off Cheticamp in Cape Breton in the gulf, and there are a lot of people out there very concerned about the fact that they're right in the heart of lobster spawning grounds.

Now, if we wish to protect the northern cod stocks and the spawning grounds from seals by excluding them from this particular zone, and you also said you want to protect the stocks from man's devastation as well as seals, would you not also say that in order to protect lobster stocks, or any other stocks of that nature, seismic oil and gas drilling should not be allowed in those spawning grounds as well? If I said “There's a lot of oil and gas in there, we'll go in there and do some seismic drilling”, what would you say to that?

Dr. George Rose: You don't even want to know what I'd say to that.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Okay, good. Good. Stop right there, because I'm going to be cut off soon. That's good.

Then I hope that the recommendation from FRCC, in terms of that oil and gas lease we've been talking about, would also include recommending to the government to get those guys out of there and keep those stocks protected.

I am sorry for not having the information here, but what was the quota you recommended to DFO last year be taken out of the seal herd? What was the quota amount?

Mr. Fred Woodman: We did not mention a number. This is our first time using up to 50%—

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Okay, very good.

Mr. Fred Woodman: Significantly reduced.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Okay. I understand and I appreciate the seriousness of your recommendation. There are an awful lot of people who have called me to say that basically the FRCC is staking its entire reputation on this aspect, because of the emotion around the seal hunt and because you've got competing interest groups involved in it. So I wish you the best of luck.

Dr. Rose, referring to what you said earlier about protecting stocks from man and seals, if you word it like that and get the releases out in that nature, I think you'll have greater success in achieving your goal. The reason I say that is because every time man screws something up we have to have a cull or a reduction of a species. When I lived in the Yukon, it had to be on the wolves. When I lived in Prince George, it had to be on the bears. Then we had the snow geese. Now we're talking seals. Eventually, man will have to take responsibility for his actions, for the devastation we've wreaked on all other species on this planet.

You're saying you want to put balance in, you want to protect it, and the ultimate goal, of course, is to protect the livelihood of those people who live in those coastal communities, not just in Newfoundland, but throughout Atlantic Canada. I can assure you that we'll take your recommendations very seriously, and thank you for your presentation today.

However, you've got to come up with an answer. If you said there were 500,000 seals in the gulf and you want that numbder reduced, you'd have to come up with specific recommendations as to how they should be reduced and what is to be done with the animals, specifically, in order to sell it. You will have difficulty with it if you don't.

A voice: That's what they want to go for.

Dr. Dan Lane: Mr. Chairman, it's in our mandate as a council, the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council, to make a recommendation to the minister on a level of catch for seals. We do have a mandate and very much the same constituency as you do in terms of how we want to see this proceed. At the end of November, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans came to us and made it very clear that he wanted direction on seals; it had to be clear and it had to be keeping the pressure on.

You had an independent scientist come before you and you asked him very pointed questions, the same as you asked us, about what should the number be. I think he responded by saying that this is more of a political decision. In kind, I think what we're asking the minister to do is.... We're giving him the flexibility to say that action has to be taken.

I also want to mention that it's not our mandate to deal with markets. In fact, we had a long and arduous discussion around the council table on exactly the point that Tina Fagan raised and you raised about what the numbers should be and what impact there would be on markets. It's a very serious question. That is exactly why, as Fred has mentioned, there is the need for a coordinating committee, something to act in concert with the Seal Industry Development Council so that we deal with this.

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I think I can point out to you, too, as you know, Brian Roberts was here and gave you a very clear prescription about some of the things that could be done and were done for the fur institute that didn't happen for the seal issue. If we all act in that way and look at those possible suggestions with this committee, then we'll solve a lot of problems. But it's not our mandate to come up with numbers. It's not our mandate to deal with or persuade markets one way or the other. It is our mandate to deal with those constituents to conserve fish, and we're obligated to make the kinds of recommendations we did to the minister. Now it's up to him to act.

The Chairman: Thank you, Dr. Lane.

Mr. Drouin.

[Translation]

Mr. Claude Drouin (Beauce, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for being late, but I was at a meeting of the Transportation Committee, where we were doing the clause-by-clause study of a bill.

You have raised some important points, but you said that these aspects were not part of your mandate. Don't you think that they should be part of it? Would that be possible? To me, that would seem to be a logical continuation. You should go further and not stop at formulating general recommendations. I have the feeling that there is something missing. I would like it to be taken further. Is that possible? Is it desirable, in your view?

[English]

Mr. Fred Woodman: Recommendation B.III on page 11 of our release 1999 Conservation Requirements for the Gulf and South Coast of Newfoundland goes right to the heart of what you're asking. We're not specific about market, but the coordinating team is responsible for the organization and development of strategies. Included in that strategy I would think there possibly could be—we don't know, but there could be—how to deal with the situation of the number that you kill. The other one is “other activities as deemed appropriate.”

As Dan Lane just said, it's not our job to get into the marketing or to make recommendations, but by establishing this group, hopefully they would look at different avenues of how to achieve the objective of reducing the seal population.

[Translation]

Mr. Claude Drouin: I quite agree with you, but you will acknowledge that there's a big difference between 8 p. 100 and 50 p. 100. You have carried out studies in this area. What would be best? Could you give us some more specific information so that we can make the most enlightened decision possible? You seem to be saying that seals are in large part responsible for the current situation since, as we know, the restrictions that have been in effect since 1994 on cod fishing efforts have not yielded the expected results. As my colleagues on both sides of this table have mentioned, many people depend on fishing for their livelihood. Could you not be clear so that we can make the best possible decision so as to give fishers back their freedom to earn a living?

[English]

Dr. Dan Lane: I think we've opened the door to exactly the kind of discussion and the answers you're looking for in this. We need to have more work done on all aspects of this system, and that includes the impacts on local areas of taking seals and the impacts on cod. We can do a better job of measuring that than we ever can in general terms about the whole North Atlantic.

So I think we're trying to get down to that level where we can answer some questions we can logically present and come up with scientific evidence on. We also need the evidence to tell us where the market can go with this and how we should do a better job of presenting these products to the market so that we don't provide ammunition for detractors on this. All these questions have to be dealt with, and we're proposing that it ought to be a mandate of a particular group to do just that. Right now we all have pieces of the mandate all over the place. I think if we set this out as a task for a particular group that we're recommending be established, then exactly the kinds of questions you ask can be dealt with.

[Translation]

Mr. Claude Drouin: Thank you. I'd like to ask a short question about your recommendation concerning the 6,000 tons of the biomass, which totals 90,000 tons. You seem to fear that this may have repercussions later on.

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As you know, the association La MORUE asked for access to 10% of the biomass, that is, 9,000 tons. Would it be possible to meet them halfway between your recommendation and what this association was demanding, so as to set the amount at 7,500 tons, for example? Would such a solution be feasible or would it be dangerous for the future of the fishery?

Mr. Dan Lane: We will never say that it would be dangerous. We are a council for the conservation of fisheries resources. In setting this quota of 6,000 tons, we took into consideration all the scientific data and all the elements submitted by industry, including the La MORUE group from Gaspé. Their input on the subject was very important and we took it into account when we formulated this recommendation.

Mr. Claude Drouin: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chairman: Thank you, Claude.

Yvan again.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvan Bernier: I will say only a few words. I'd like to reassure our friend Peter, by telling him that finding markets for any seal carcasses that may result from experiments in certain bays is not part of the FRCC's mandate. Since we're talking about experiments, Peter, we're only talking about a limited volume. In scientific terms, the two scientists sitting at the other end of the table could perhaps throw some light on the subject.

In John Efford's film, we saw cod with their throat slit lying on the sea bottom. What creatures ate those cods? What creatures cleaned the ocean floor? What part of nature cleaned it? That's my first question.

Secondly, as an experiment, could the seal meat not in turn be used as bait in the lobster or crab fishery? In other words, Peter, I'd like to turn the food chain upside down. I'd like to put the cannibal that is causing us problems at the bottom of the chain, to be eaten by the rest of it. Is this a possibility we could look into? We would no longer have to put ourselves out running after new markets because it would be used as food for scavenging crab and lobster. Why not? Is it feasible?

Some hon. members: Oh! Oh!

[English]

Mr. Fred Woodman: We've heard that comment in the gulf—you know, what's wrong with feeding the seals to the fish—but we haven't gone that far down the road on that one yet.

The Chairman: Are there any other questions?

Mr. Peter Stoffer: The last thing I will say is that Pierre Trudeau was right when he said back in the 1970s that the problem with fish is that they swim.

If I could just reiterate, on the aspect of the oil and gas drilling in the gulf, if you could recommend to the minister “no way”, you'd make a lot of people very happy. That's something for you to think about.

Mr. Fred Woodman: The only situation we had with respect to oil and gas was on Georges Bank when we received a request from the fishing industry for support with respect to the gulf. We received our first piece of correspondence on that just this past week. Am I correct in that, Chris?

Mr. Chris Allen (Acting Executive Director, Fisheries Resource Conservation Council): Yes.

Mr. Fred Woodman: That was our first knowledge of what was happening there. Any time we have been asked, we have usually taken a position on those issues. When requests come forward, when we have our next council meeting, we will deal with them.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Can I send you a request myself to examine that, or does it have to come from the government?

Mr. Fred Woodman: No—

The Chairman: Peter, maybe you can ask that afterwards, without the committee.

Just before you close—we have some scientists here—it appears we're talking about exclusion zones. I'm not sure, but I think seals are fairly intelligent, like most mammals. Over the years fishermen have preyed on seals. There have been areas where maybe the fishermen weren't watched that closely, but in certain rivers, fjords, and bays over the last century, seals just weren't welcome. I'm not sure if seals learned lessons, but the lesson they seem to have today is they have open waters to go anywhere.

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From your observations of seals, if there were exclusion zones where fishermen could deal with seals, would seals learn to not be in those zones? Are they intelligent enough to know that's just the place where they can't go? There should be some form of security or enforcement or some method of dealing with seals.

Dr. George Rose: There's absolutely no doubt about that at all. Seals are very intelligent predators, and there are all kinds of analogies you could draw around the world, from dealing with large carnivorous mammals. Their intelligence is beyond any dispute. The problem is perhaps that they're too intelligent. Like bears in the national parks, they always come back because they know where the supper is free.

I agree, they have free reign now over much of the ocean, and certainly in all the coastal areas. Whether they would stay away voluntarily if they knew they weren't welcome is another question. They would certainly know that they were not welcome. Whether they would be smart enough to get around any effects we could put on them is another question. But by and large, they would. They would have an impact, I'm sure.

The Chairman: Mr. Woodman, would you like to conclude with a few remarks?

Mr. Fred Woodman: No, I just want to say, with respect to what Mr. Stoffer was talking about and relating it to Newfoundland, this seal problem is not a Newfoundland problem. In eastern Nova Scotia, for example, in NAFO area 4VsW, which is the eastern Nova Scotia and Sable Island area, the stock of fish about ten years ago supported a 55,000 tonne commercial fishery. Today I think there's in the area of 35,000 tonnes of total biomass—declining.

So there are a lot of indicators. I wish Mr. Provenzano were here to hear that one. That's an area we are greatly concerned about, and the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence even more so. We're really disappointed with the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence. Certainly northern cod is a story in itself.

We talk about exclusion zones. A lot of us would like to put our fingers on exclusion zones and land-wide—not just on specific areas. But I don't think we can do that, so we have to be proscriptive in picking areas where we know it will have some impact. For example, southern Newfoundland does not have a seal population at the moment. But this year, during consultations in Harbour Breton in Newfoundland, we were told the grey seals were now moving into 3Ps, so ten years down the road we might be addressing a situation similar to what we have in southwest Nova Scotia. Certainly 3Ps, in my opinion, should be an exclusion zone at the moment. At least keep the animals under control in that particular area, because their population can explode very quickly.

The Chairman: In conclusion, I'd like to thank you for coming this morning. You're probably the first group we've had that really brings together both scientific information and knowledge and investigation, along with the practical experience of our fishermen. For that reason, when we eventually have our report finalized, I hope it will reflect some of the very good information we received this morning.

I was also very impressed with the specific information you brought, in terms of knowing the geography and the fishery of the Atlantic. It was certainly very impressive for committee members to hear someone before a committee who could talk about a certain fjord, river, or bay, and know specifically what was going on there. So thank you very much for coming, on behalf of all committee members. It was a good morning.

I'll conclude, and would like the committee to stay for just one minute. Alan is putting together the report, and today is the day to try to get our written information to him. It's my understanding there will be a number of votes in the House on Monday night or late Monday afternoon, and most of us should be back in town. Our office will be contacting you about a possible meeting of this committee on an informal basis Monday evening.

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We'll be looking at exchanging the information that has been brought in by committee members. Also, if possible, Bill, we looked at lobsters here with Wayne's group from P.E.I. and we had a fairly good season on the Miramichi—it's getting better. On Monday evening, if it can be arranged, we'd like to have a brief sampling maybe of some of the Miramichi crustaceans, to see if they are of the quality we usually have there. If committee members are available to come, we'll give you some information on that. So that's Monday, after the votes in the House, if all goes well.

That's it.