I would like to thank our witness very much for coming.
I'd certainly like to recognize Clifford Hood, who was not here as a witness today but was at the panel.
I'd like to remind our committee members, just before Mr. Morrow leaves, that the steering committee will meet immediately following this meeting.
Mr. Morrow, a couple of questions came up, and I will be very brief.
For the benefit of the committee, what we're seeing off southwestern Nova Scotia with the increase in the grey seal population has been an expansion of their territory outside of where we would normally have seen them. By that I mean at 35 and 40 miles out into the ocean, where they're following the fishing boats.
Certainly you're familiar with the letter--and I think it has been presented to the committee--from John Levy, where he was out at the 35-mile line and the grey seals were simply taking the fish off his longline gear faster than he could haul it in. So we do have a serious problem.
My specific question is on the netting of seals. Mr. Stoffer brought it up. It seems to be an issue that DFO has not acted on. It's certainly a humane way of harvesting. It looks after the extreme difficulty of recovering the seal. It looks after the issue of trying to hunt them on the islands, where after the first shot they're all in the water and gone. It's certainly carried out in Norway; they net them in Norway. They net them in Iceland. They net them in other parts of the world, and it's a humane source of hunting. What seems to be the holdup on the netting process?