FOPO Committee Report

CPC Supplementary Opinion

Canada has pinniped problems.

Canadian fish populations and ecosystems are being harmed in areas where pinniped populations have been allowed to increase unchecked, resulting in the depletion of wild fish stocks due to over predation, preventing depleted stocks from recovering.

For the West Coast, the Committee received testimony stating pinniped predation rates on juvenile chinook and coho salmon have increased exponentially  and are inflicting a mortality rate of up to 40% on juvenile chinook salmon and about 60% on juvenile coho salmon migrating to sea.[1] The Committee also heard that on the British Columbia coast, sea lions consume over 300,000 tonnes of fish annually, more fish than all the commercial fisheries combined.[2] Pinniped predation in B.C. is also a contributor to many stocks of salmon and steelhead being classified as threatened or endangered as defined by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada.[3]

The Committee was also provided insights into the damages inflicted by pinniped predation in the Gulf of St. Lawrence where a study found that pinniped predation on cod have exponentially increased since the 1970s.[4] Despite low fishing rates of cod in the Gulf, stocks have not recovered and continue to decline with negative rates of production among the lowest stock sizes and modelling suggests that these trends are driven by pinniped predation.[5] Studies have shown that the diet of pinnipeds includes enough cod to account for continuing declines of cod in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence stock, and continued predation could potentially lead to the extinction of cod in certain areas of the Gulf.[6]

Testimony also stated that as pinniped populations increase to unsustainable levels, the increased competition for limited prey causes stunted growth, increased juvenile mortality, starvation, and an exponential increase in miscarriages.[7]

Unmanaged pinniped populations also inflict harmful impacts on Canadians and coastal communities. Canadian fish harvesters depend on secure access to sustained and well-managed fisheries for their livelihoods and the increasing pinniped predation only causes further instability and insecurity of fish stocks which in turn causes instability and insecurity for harvesters. As pinniped predation remains out of balance, entire communities and peripheral sectors benefiting from fisheries activities are harmed.

Pinniped products including fur, meat, omega 3 oil, and protein powder could provide many communities sources of food security and income. Harvest opportunities lost due to non-management of pinnipeds represent direct losses of food security for many communities, and whether they be coastal or further afar, this is especially true for isolated communities such as those in Canada’s far north.

The Committee was provided testimony stating that Inuit communities have faced the greatest hardship caused by the 2009 EU ban on Canadian seal products as the ban directly undermined food security and incomes inflicting grave effects in those communities.[8] 

During Committee meetings, Members heard an overwhelming amount of evidence from harvesters, Indigenous representatives, and scientists describing the devastation facing wild fish and ecosystems where pinniped populations have not been reduced and allowed to grow to severe levels. Conservative Members are motivated to provide this supplementary report to ensure key concerns raised in testimony of the clear majority of fishermen, Indigenous representatives, and scientists are properly reflected.

Managing Canada’s pinniped populations with ethical pinniped harvests will both help restore balance in ecosystems and allow Canada to empower Indigenous and coastal communities with opportunities that restore economic and food self-sufficiency through pinniped harvests.

The issue of increasing pinniped populations and the resulting harmful effects have been factored into multiple studies concluded by the Committee over the past seven years. In response to rounds of compelling expert testimony describing the acute threats of increasing pinniped predation to fisheries sustainability, biodiversity, and conservation of wild fish, the Committee has consistently and repeatedly issued recommendations calling on the Government to finally take actions to manage pinniped populations.

Such recommendations were clearly articulated to the Government in the Committee’s reports on wild Atlantic salmon (2017),[9] Newfoundland and Labrador's northern cod fishery (2017),[10] lobster and snow crab in Eastern Canada (2019),[11] striped bass in the Miramichi River and the Gulf of St. Lawrence (2019),[12] and wild Pacific salmon (2021).[13]  The Government’s failures to implement the many recommendations provided by the Committee over the years have allowed the prevailing harms and threats of pinniped overpopulation to both persist and worsen.

The Committee’s 2023 report examining science at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) touched on the DFO’s non-management of pinniped populations and the DFO’s suppression of scientific work that concluded that reducing pinnipeds in the Fraser River could assist recovery of endangered interior Fraser steelhead. [14] Revelations in the science study and the Government’s refusal to act on years of Committee recommendations related to pinniped management raise very serious questions about what factors are outweighing values of conservation and biodiversity in the Department’s and the Government’s decision-making.

Persisting and expanding pinniped overpopulation in Canadian waters has been enabled by failures to apply the very ecosystem-based fisheries management approaches touted by successive fisheries ministers and DFO officials. On its web page titled “Principles of Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management,” the DFO states that fisheries management decisions need to consider ecosystem changes including interactions (e.g. natural mortality caused by predation) of target fish stocks with predators, competitors, and prey species.[15] Despite this expressed commitment to ecosystem-based management, testimony from DFO officials failed to validate or invalidate needs for pinniped populations and predation to be reduced to conserve, restore, and in some cases save from  extinction, particular populations of fish.

Summary

Canada’s population of pinnipeds is out of control having grown from 2.5 million in the 1980s to over 10.3 million today.

The only way to restore balance to our ocean's ecosystem as other countries have done is by increasing the number of pinnipeds available for harvest in areas where populations need to be reduced. Allowing pinniped populations to grow to unprecedented levels poses acute threats to conservation, restoration, biodiversity, food security and coastal communities, including Indigenous communities, that depend on fisheries.

While ongoing scientific research is required to support management of pinnipeds to points of balance, there is a sufficient scientific basis for overdue management action through increased pinniped harvests of specific populations.Pinniped management is also essential for the conservation of harvester livelihoods and benefits, cultures, and traditions that flow from them.

Increased and sustainable pinniped harvests can restore ecosystem balances and supply value chains for optimum utilization of pinniped protein, oils, and hides. Increased pinniped harvest and production of pinniped products would greatly benefit from increased demands and trade of products in domestic and international markets.

After seven years of recommendations from this Committee and pleas from Canadian harvesters and the coastal communities they sustain, the Government must act now to enable the timely reduction of pinniped populations where they need to be reduced.

Recommendations

• - that the DFO immediately increase the number of pinnipeds that may be harvested in specific areas where pinniped predation harms biodiversity, conservation, or recovery of stocks of concern.
• - that the DFO and any other appropriate federal departments engage with provincial governments of the DFO’s Atlantic, Gulf, Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, Arctic, and Pacific regions to cooperatively identify and reduce federal and provincial regulations impeding the harvest, processing, or trade of pinnipeds and pinniped products.
• - that Cabinet immediately issue direction to appropriate federal departments to develop and deploy a diplomatic strategy to neutralize misconceptions, irritants and barriers of Canada’s trading partners related to trade of pinniped products, such as outdated and irrelevant elements of the U.S.’ Marine Mammal Protection Act.
• - that the Federal Government recognize decades of negative economic and cultural impacts on Canada’s fishing industry and coastal and Indigenous communities caused by misconceptions of the seal industry and impacts of pinniped overpopulation.   
• - that the Federal Government develop a fact-based transparent educational program to address pinniped overpopulation and impacts on coastal and Indigenous communities and the fishing industry.
• - that the Federal Government immediately enhance current seal fishery science in cooperation with harvesters and Indigenous and coastal communities.
• - that the DFO review its current nuisance seal policy and its impact on fisheries, fish farms, recreational fisheries and Indigenous and coastal communities and define and provide to the Committee the threats of trade sanctions that DFO would expect in response to potential removals of nuisance seals.