There are a lot of questions we're still looking at, both within DFO and I think with others, in trying to understand what the ecosystem impacts of pinniped predation are. As we know, pinnipeds obviously consume salmon. That's not an issue of debate. It's about the proportion of salmon they consume and whether or not they are consuming other predators of salmon. For instance, the majority of seals consume more hake than they do salmon. Hake, as we know, is a predator of juvenile salmon, so we're trying to understand that ecosystem effect.
We're also looking at the way we conduct these studies. We're moving from just scat analysis of seals to more fatty acid analysis that might give us a longer time frame of the data, not just a single point of data.
There are multiple avenues we're pursuing to try to get a much better understanding of the role of seals and pinnipeds generally in British Columbia and their potential impact on salmon populations and other populations within the ecosystem.