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

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

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

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

Fisheries committee  That is an excellent question, because it forces us to stand, look forward and say that if we have a seal herd that exists at this current population level and we're not going to take any proactive action to try to dial it down, then I don't think it's reasonable for us to expect many of these fish stocks to rebuild to these levels that we might have seen in 1960, 1970 or the early 1980s.

Fisheries committee  You can use either one.

Fisheries committee  Yes.

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

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

Fisheries committee  I have to harken back to Mr. LeBlanc's input here, which is that we can't only be happy when science says something is going up. Really, this is about getting the right answer and getting a consistent answer. Whether a stock is appearing better or a stock is appearing worse, that is not the concern as much as it is making sure that we have predictability moving into the future about what that stock is going to do during this period of profound change.

Fisheries committee  Yes, it is quite clear over the recent history of the last, I would say, five years or so, that we've seen an increasing shift away from those industry stakeholders who were directly linked to the resource and their being replaced by ENGOs who might come from well-educated backgrounds but don't necessarily have that tangible link to the boat, to the wharf or to the fishery itself.

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

Fisheries committee  Yes, that is exactly the focus, where you have a body of knowledge from outside that is in conflict or in contrast to that presented in the room. Unless that knowledge is brought to the table during those discussions in the CSAS process, it generally is not accepted, so then it is forced to be offered after the fact when it cannot be actually incorporated into the science or decision-making process.

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

Fisheries committee  Really a great example of this lies with DFO survey information, which Mr. Bonnell was just discussing. Surveys are conducted annually and those surveys require...whether they sample during the day or the night and how this changes over time. If you have a staff member who's well trained and has 30 or 40 years of experience with this survey information and knows where the limitations are being replaced by somebody who doesn't have that same knowledge, you lose all of that institutional understanding about the context of how that survey information might be interpreted.