Under the Canopy
On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, former Minister of Natural Resources, Jerry Ouellette takes you along on the journey to see the places and meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and Under The Canopy.
Under the Canopy
Episode 76: Ontario Commercial Fisheries' Association
The episode delves into the intricate tapestry of commercial fishing in Ontario's Great Lakes, emphasizing sustainability, economic impact, and the challenges posed by invasive species. With expert insights from Vito, the executive director of the Ontario Commercial Fisheries' Association, listeners learn about the significance of responsible fishery management and community collaboration to ensure the health of aquatic ecosystems.
• Exploration of the economic impact of commercial fishing
• Discussion of sustainability and MSC certification
• Overview of key species in Lake Erie and their management
• Analysis of invasive species and their threats
• Insights into fish processing and the supply chain
• Emphasis on collaboration among stakeholders for resource management
Hi everybody. I'm Angelo Viola and I'm Pete Bowman. Now you might know us as the hosts of Canada's Favorite Fishing Show, but now we're hosting a podcast. That's right. Every Thursday, Ang and I will be right here in your ears bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio. Now, what are we going to talk about for two hours every week? Well, you know there's going to be a lot of fishing.
Speaker 3:I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show.
Speaker 4:We're going to be talking to people from all facets of the outdoors, From athletes All the other guys would go golfing Me and Garth and Turk and all the Russians would go fishing To scientists.
Speaker 3:But now that we're reforesting- and all that, it's the perfect transmission environment for life.
Speaker 2:To chefs If any game isn't cooked properly, marinated, you will taste it.
Speaker 1:And whoever else will pick up the phone Wherever you are. Outdoor Journal Radio seeks to answer the questions and tell the stories of all those who enjoy being outside. Find us on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 6:As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons of our natural world become harder and harder to hear, but they are still available to those who know where to listen. I'm Jerry Ouellette and I was honoured to serve as Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources. However, my journey into the woods didn't come from politics. Rather, it came from my time in the bush and a mushroom. In 2015, I was introduced to the birch-hungry fungus known as chaga, a tree conch with centuries of medicinal applications used by Indigenous peoples all over the globe. After nearly a decade of harvest use, testimonials and research, my skepticism has faded to obsession and I now spend my life dedicated to improving the lives of others through natural means. But that's not what the show is about. My pursuit of the strange mushroom and my passion for the outdoors has brought me to the places and around the people that are shaped by our natural world world. On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, I'm going to take you along with me to see the places, meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and under the canopy. So join me today for another great episode and hopefully we can inspire a few more people to live their lives under the canopy. We can inspire a few more people to live their lives under the canopy, all right? Well, I want to thank everybody, as always, for listening to the podcast in Ontario, across Canada and the States and, of course, around the world. You know all those people that listen to us. Where we're ranking in Switzerland and Ghana, I mentioned, you know, previously that there was some elections taking place and the environment was one of the big things that was happening in Ghana, which I found very, very interesting. Not only that, but the supporters we have in Trinidad and Tobago and everywhere else that listen to us. And, as always, if you have any suggestions for a podcast or any questions you want answered, let us know by email under the Canopy Canada at gmailcom, and we can take a look and see what we can figure out for you. Sometimes it takes a little bit of time to find the expertise that people are looking for, but we work at it and today we have a special.
Speaker 6:Well, before I get to the special guest, I got to say you know it was one of those weeks again where we got a real cold slap in the face. This morning I was out running my chocolate lab gunner and it was only minus five, which is not that bad Celsius for our American listeners, but the wind bit so hard it was pretty bad. And not only that, but this week I had to go in and see my bone cruncher, my chiropractor. He does a great job. See my bone cruncher, my chiropractor, he does a great job. And he fixed let me see, he put my rib back in place, my shoulder back in my back, my hip, my wrists and my right knee. And he looks at me. He says Jerry.
Speaker 6:I said yes, sir. He said you've been doing wood again, haven't you? I said yeah, I'm helping the boys doing firewood and getting all that done. So then I'll be back at it again tomorrow working with my oldest son, Josh. But it's something that we do because we love out there being in the bush and working with that kind of stuff and it's a great opportunity to spend time together and something that we love doing. And yeah, if I got to go see the chiropractor to put things back in place to get me going again, that's what we got to do. But anyways, today we have a special guest on an interesting topic that came out as a result of speaking to another podcast that we have and we have Vito with us. G'day Vito. How are you?
Speaker 4:G'day, Jerry. I am very well. I've been in Windsor, Ontario, and I am suffering from the cold weather, much like yourself right now.
Speaker 6:So you live in Windsor, ontario. That's right across the river from the Detroit Lions right.
Speaker 4:Yes, go Lions.
Speaker 6:Yeah, they're having quite the season. Are you a Lions fan?
Speaker 4:Well not only that, the Misses and I have been season ticket holders for a long time, you know. Unfortunately, though, with COVID hitting and not being able to cross the border, we had to let go of those tickets. And go figure, jerry. Now the Lions are doing great after I stopped being a season ticket holder.
Speaker 6:Oh, no, yeah, they are having a great season. What is it? 12-1, I think.
Speaker 4:Yes, yes, they put the playoff spot and they're looking very good right now.
Speaker 6:Absolutely yeah and what's that arena like? I look at the arena and it looks pretty good but I hear the capacity is okay but not that great for NFL stadiums. But it's quite the stadium.
Speaker 4:It's not the largest stadium in the league. I venture to guess around 65,000, but when it is full, like right now, at every game it is quite loud.
Speaker 6:Yeah, well, the Lions are doing great and I enjoy watching good NFL, good football, and certainly the Lions have got the team together. With the way things are unfolding for them, We'll see how the playoffs go. So you live in Windsor now. Have you always lived in Windsor, Vito?
Speaker 4:I've lived in Windsor for a good portion of my life. I was born and raised in Windsor and I've lived for about 25 years in Kingsville, Ontario, and that is the southernmost town in Kingsville, I believe.
Speaker 6:So and just so people know, is that what Peeling Island kind of way? And just so people know, is that what Pelee Island kind of way?
Speaker 4:Yes, absolutely. We have a port there and we have, you know, ships going to and from Pelee Island, right from there.
Speaker 6:Oh, okay, very good, and so tell us a bit about the organization now. Representative Vito.
Speaker 4:Sure, so I'm the executive director for the Ontario Commercial Fisheries Association. That's a mouthful, ocfa for short. It's a longstanding organization going back about 80 years, and we're an advocacy group for commercial fishers and processors in the province of Ontario. As you can imagine, ontario is blessed with the waterways that we have and we, you know, and all the great lakes that we have access to, and you know, besides recreational fishing, commercial fishing is a big part of a lot of these lakes.
Speaker 6:And you know you've got a long-standing affiliation with the Ontario Commercial Fishers Association before becoming the position you have now. And what was that Kind of give us a bit of a background on that, sure.
Speaker 4:So you know, prior I took on the role of executive director in May of this year, so I'm new into this position. But you are correct, I've been involved with the association for a long time. I owned and operated a commercial fish processing facility in Kingsville for about three decades. Oh yeah, yeah. So that's quite the exciting business. And you know so, I'm vastly familiar with the Great Lakes and the buying and trading of commercially caught fish in our area.
Speaker 6:So when you owned a commercial fish processing facility, what kind of fish was it basically you're processing? And kind of walk us through the process for, okay, how does it work? And it kind of walked us through the process for, okay, how does it work and how often? And let me just say way back in the 70s, long time ago, when I represented Canada at an international event in Scotland, I spent one day on the north fishing in a commercial boat on the North Sea. And I have to tell you at that time I had crewed on Comra, which was the City of Oshawa Marine and Rescue Association boat, and it was, you know, some of the troughs that you went in.
Speaker 6:When you were out there on Lake Ontario doing a rescue, you could not see anything but water surrounding you and I got to tell you I was out on the North Sea and we didn't go out until dark it was. We went out to like 11 o'clock at night, sort of thing, and we fished all night long with them. But and it was a calm day on the North Sea with 20 foot swells and I was so sick that I stayed below the entire time and couldn't wait to get back into dry land, but it was quite the adventure, and what they did was so. They fished all night long, they brought their harvest in and then they took it right to the processing plant.
Speaker 4:Is it the same sort of thing here that happens? Yes, basically our operations here consist of fishers that realistically don't overnight. In that way, we gill net fish, meaning we go out in the morning, we lift commercial gear. Gill net is the primary gear that we use and that's been set from the prior day. So you, you retrieve your nets, you, you pull the nets onto the boat and we have deck hands that pick the fish out of the nets and, to sum it up, I mean basically we turn around and set the nets back for the next day.
Speaker 6:Okay, and so and so, so they, so they set the nets back up and then they'll bring that into the fish processing facility and then process it.
Speaker 4:Yes, we have several ports across the Great Lakes.
Speaker 4:It should be noted that Lake Erie, being the smallest lake, is actually the largest producing lake out of the Great Lakes and consists of over 80% of all commercial valued fish landed, which is really mind-blowing to most people who aren't familiar.
Speaker 4:And yeah, so the vessels come into port and, if you could imagine, we've got ports from the north shore, basically of Lake Erie, from Kingsville all the way across to Port Dover, and we send our refrigerated trucks to meet the vessels, we supply the vessels with lots of ice, as you could imagine, and then we commute that fish back to a collection site or at the processing facility where the products are grad. Products are are graded, uh, we, we take fish and separate them by size and, uh, we begin the processing. And when we when we say processing, of course we mean predominantly the main thing is turning whole fish into fillets. And, uh, we have, that is actually all done by hand mostly. So hand-cut fillets is the way that it's been going on for a long time. That hasn't really changed and that secures us really the best quality and best yielding, you know fish fillets that we could produce you know fish fillets that we could produce.
Speaker 6:So not only do you support an industry of catching the fish on the lakes with the gillnet process that you mentioned, but not only that, but then the processing facilities also provide employment in certain sectors as well. That is correct.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that is right.
Speaker 6:Now, do you represent, does your organization represent those processing facilities as well, or just the fishers on the waters?
Speaker 4:No, we represent the fishers on the waters along with processors, and we have right now 11 main processors that deal with freshwater fish processing.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I'm certainly familiar with the Port Dover perch. That has a bit of a history or a fame to it that a lot of people know about. But what other kind of fish is it that essentially that they're catching, and whereabouts are these catches taking place?
Speaker 4:Yes, so in Lake Erie we have the predominant species being yellow perch is one of the most desirable in walleye. Walleye is right now, as we speak, at record levels and I'm going back to the institution of quotas back in 83, 84. To give you some perspective, just on Lake Erie we have a quota of approximately 13 million pounds just in this little lake that we've got here. So that is astounding to most people that hear it for the first time.
Speaker 6:So when you talk 13 million pounds, how does that distribute? Now, how often are these quotas set and who is the one that determines the quota? I know, but I'm just letting the people know.
Speaker 4:Yes, of course. Well, quotas are set annually and you know they're not just arbitrarily chosen and there's a lot of work that goes into determining what quotas should be. So there's an organization or a commission called the Great Lakes Fishery Commission which helps in making available research and really providing and acting as a liaison between all the governing bodies. As you can imagine, with Lake Erie we have to share this resource with our counterparts in the US, meaning on the US side for Lake Erie we have Michigan, ohio, we have Pennsylvania and New York right. So there's a lot of stakeholders at the table, all with different interests.
Speaker 4:Jerry, right On the Canadian side, for example, we commercially fish walleye, where on the US side it is not commercially fished, and the main driver on the US side is the sports and recreational activities that go along with walleye, activities that go along with walleye. So there's a lot of different factors and unique scenarios in which the different bodies need to access, you know, the species. So it is important that we do our best to work with our friends across any other jurisdictions, but also predominantly making sure that the resource that we are harvesting is sustainable for future generations.
Speaker 6:So there's no US commercial fishers taking place in the US jurisdictions on the Great Lakes, there Anywhere on the Great Lakes, or just Erie, or is that anywhere?
Speaker 4:Well, on Erie the example I gave was for walleye they do commercially fish some yellow perch via trap net and in the other Great Lakes, yes, there is commercial fishing happening with some other species like lake whitefish.
Speaker 6:And that's on the US side. Yeah, okay. So, and I got to tell you, vito, I recall when I was minister that I had this meeting with the senior bureaucracy in the ministry and they came in and tell me that look, minister, the tonnage of the walleye in the Quinte area is so low that we're about to lose the entire fishery. I said, what do you mean? And I said, well, we've done our accounts and the numbers are so poor that we're about to lose the entire fishery if we don't shut it down completely to everyone. And I said, well, let me think about this and take a few minutes. So what I did was I got in touch with a number of groups and we're on the Outdoor Radio Podcast Network with Angelo, the Fish and Canada guys, and so I reached out to them and we got a committee going that looked into a lot of this stuff that was taking place there there. But I got the recreational, the tournament anglers involved, because you know when you're going out and you're actively doing this as almost basically a livelihood of commercial fishing and tournaments and things like that, you want to know where the fish are. Not only that, but I got in touch with recreational fishermen. I got in touch with the municipalities and I got in touch with the commercial fishermen in the area and what I found out was that the ministry, in order to set a standard, they had a base location where they were doing all their number counts to do their catches, to find out the number of walleye in the area, and those were the same spots that they had done ever since they started doing these counts. But what happened was zebra mussels came in, changed the water clarity and so zebra mussels for people who don't understand is zebra mussels feed on the small plankton and the small little things that they filter out in the water, and that's what the fish would come in and feed on a lot of those small things like that and the smaller fish. And slowly the fish would come in and feed on a lot of those small things like that and the smaller fish and slowly, you know, the larger fish come in and feed on those and then, effectively, the walleye came into those areas to feed on those larger fish that feed on all that material. But the zebra mussels now had clarified the water so much that everything had relocated, and so what I'd heard from predominantly the commercial fishermen out in the area was that look, they're doing the counts wrong. The walleye have relocated now and they're in different areas. The numbers are the same. It's just that you can't count in areas because of the environmental change in the area and those walleye are no longer in those, so the numbers will, of course, look low.
Speaker 6:So I said look. I said we're not going to close the fishery. And oh, did they yell at me. You'll be known as the minister who lost the entire fishery in Quincy and you'll be responsible and that'll be your legacy. And they're yelling at me. I'm like no, this is what we're going to do. I said we're not shutting it down. Shutting it down, we're going to do our counts. However, we're not going to do the counts in the areas. We're going to take all these people on the ministry boats to do the counts to find out, and we're going to change the areas where they do the counts.
Speaker 6:And they were like they fought me on it, of course, because and they played the game of getting in touch with some of the writers out there who they thought they had influence with me and then I said look. And so they come back and said like minister, how can you change that whole committee and I said well, the committee was unsuccessful, it wasn't working. So we got a point now where they're going to shut it down. So I got to bring in some people that we'll see have a different perspective. And if they verify that that's the issue, then that's what we'll do, because and if they verify that that's the issue, then that's what we'll do, because we'll certainly protect the fishery Anyway. So they go out and do the counts and they come back in and those same individuals that were yelling at me just looked at me and said Minister, how did you know? I said what do you mean? How did I know? How did you know that the fishery was stable and okay there, like we had no idea. And I said, well, I just reached out to those individuals that this is their livelihood, this is their passion, this is you know. They want to protect that fishery. That's just the same as everybody else. And I included them as part of the process. And guess what? The fishery wasn't closed. They realized that the counts were fine and stable. It's just that the zebra mussels had changed the environment for the way the predation fish takes place and they were relocated. And guess what? It stayed open and everybody was good, and so we have to make those.
Speaker 6:When you put in a position of a minister, you have to look at those things from all perspectives. You have to look at those things from all perspectives. And I sat on some boards and I had to tell the boards now that I said, look, just because I handed a piece of paper does not mean that it's full and complete information from a total perspective of what I'm looking at. What it means is the person who provided me with that information. That's the full and complete information as they have, and what I need to do is I need to check out all those other places where the information is going to be or possibly be, in order to make a decision, and that's what I did in this case, right, so it's kind of surprising the things that have to take place Now is 13 million pounds of walleye. Is that high or low, or what's it been in the past?
Speaker 4:So, yes, jerry, I mean that is a record. It's in the top 97th percentile in the series, going back to the 80s, when the quotas were initially put in place. So, yes, guali is doing very well, is doing very well. You know, basically, when I look at my figures, just from 2016,. It wasn't that long ago and we compare the values to now, the walleye quota has doubled since then.
Speaker 6:So how do the public at large can they find any? You know, I'm just thinking those recreational fishermen that love fish and walleye okay, they do. Um, how do they find out these potential quotas to know? Hey, lake erie is the place to be when the quote is that high. Is there a public notification of that, or how does that work?
Speaker 4:yeah, I mean first off, um, we have really a truly collaboration in place where we have, for example, fmz meetings and they relate to different fishery management zones, and that's when you know the ministry. You know much like you collaborated in the past and talking to the commercial fishers, and you know the recreational guys, you know that is how it works now with these FMZ meetings, and we have an FMZ consortium for every body of water and in Lake Erie it's FMZ 19, for example, but on that board we have guys like myself from the association right, and then we have commercial fishers and then we have, you know, anglers we actually have Romaphra and fisheries anglers and as well as governing bodies at the table, and we all work together and trying to understand what the data says. Right, and I think that's important. We don't just run away with it and start making decisions without hearing from the parties like commercial fishers and anglers, who have very intimate knowledge of what is going on in these bodies of water.
Speaker 6:So, just so people understand that are listening, fmz stands for Fisheries Management Zone. Yes, and basically the province is broken into. I don't know if the state says the same, but the province of Ontario is broken into various fishery management zones, fmzs. That then they determine catch limits and season times in those specific areas in order to provide good management practices, to make sure that there's sustainability in the fisheries throughout the province of Ontario, correct?
Speaker 4:Correct, correct. And you know, on this committee we even have the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, right, Right, and you would think we would clash because we're competing for the resource, but we're not. We collaborate because we have the same goal, we have the same interest in making sure that, you know, fish population is sustainable for future generations.
Speaker 6:Right. So you know how many people basically work in your industry, like how many boats are out working in it and how many in the processing plants and that kind of thing. Kind of give us a breakdown of the economic engine that takes place. I mean you get places like Port Dover where I'm assuming you have a commercial fishery there with you know, everybody knows about Port Dover perch and it would be a major employer in those areas. Kind of give us a breakdown so people get a better understanding your employer in those areas.
Speaker 4:Kind of give us a breakdown so people get a better understanding. Yeah, so you know, commercial fishing businesses are typically located in all the small communities on the North Shore, going from the various towns that you know we talked about earlier, and they are a principal driver for economic benefit in each of these communities. And you know, right now I'm thinking that, based on an economic impact study that the most recent one that has been done, that it directly and indirectly contributes $500 million of impact. Right, so that's very significant and that's from, you know, 50 million dollars of landed value in ontario. So it uh it is a very important piece uh to the health and uh welfare of all of these uh smaller communities where we don't have a industrialized area, that maybe uh have a gm, a chsler and a Ford. So it's very important that we maintain the fisheries and that, again, that these businesses thrive in these communities as principal employers too, right?
Speaker 6:Right. So how many processing facilities and how many ports are involved?
Speaker 4:Oh geez. First off, I would like to say that we have import and export fish into and out of the province, right Predominantly. Right now we're about 11 that are members, but obviously there are non-members too, so there's a few more there. So I would probably venture to guess around 2025 altogether.
Speaker 6:So when you say there's federally registered, I know that a lot of the abattoirs there's a provincially registered abattoir and then there's a federally registered abattoir. Is it the same thing with the fishing industry?
Speaker 4:Well, for the fishing industry, we have the Canadian Food Inspection Agency because, you know, obviously we're producing fish for human consumption, and so we are. The requirement is that we're federally registered so that our goods that we process can be guaranteed to be safe for human consumption, and it's a prerequisite really to selling markets outside of Ontario, to selling markets outside of Ontario. Now, if you're a smaller operation and you are not looking to export goods outside of the province, then you just need your provincial health certificate and away you go. But typically in our business, though, the processors are handling millions of pounds of fish. So we need that exposure and we need to be able to sell into and out of Ontario, even overseas. Believe it or not, a lot of our goods do end up in Europe too.
Speaker 6:Oh yeah, I had the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission on and we talked about some of the things like the Lamprey control program and things like that and I didn't realize that places like England, lamprey, is a targeted, desired species to have and it's so much so that it's really basically destroyed a lot of the populations there and things like that and it's you know certain things. We all look at fishery and fish differently of what's accepted for consumption reasons. I mean, a lot of people, suckers and things like that are not a target species by a lot of recreational anglers, but there's certainly enough of them out there that consume a lot of that stuff as well. That's correct, Thank you.
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Speaker 6:And now it's time for another testimonial for Chaga Health and Wellness. Hi, it's Jerry from Chaga Health and Wellness. We're here in Lindsay with Tula, who is actually from Finland and uses Chega. Tula, you've had some good experiences with Chega. Can you just tell us what that experience is?
Speaker 7:Yes, I got sick with fibro, and one weekend my husband came here alone. I was home and he brought your leaflet.
Speaker 6:Right.
Speaker 7:And I read it and I said next weekend when we go to a market we're going to buy some. And so we started putting it in our morning smoothie.
Speaker 6:Right.
Speaker 7:And among a few other things that I was doing. Because of that, the chaga has been the steady one Right. I would not want to live without it. Oh good, yeah, so it's been working for me Very good. Lots of ways.
Speaker 6:And you had some good luck with blood pressure as well.
Speaker 7:Oh right, yeah, Thanks for remembering that. Yeah, I had a little bit of high elevated blood pressure and within two weeks of starting that every day, every morning, it went to normal.
Speaker 6:And you think the chaga was the reason why.
Speaker 7:Well, I didn't do anything else in that time frame.
Speaker 6:And so how much chaga did you have and how did you have it?
Speaker 7:Well, we just put that powder in the smoothie and it yeah, and it's about a tablespoon. Yeah, no, it's less than a tablespoon for a few of us yeah. So you don't need that much.
Speaker 6:Right, but a teaspoon, yeah, yeah, very good. Well, thanks very much for sharing that. We really appreciate that and wish you all the best with the Chaga. Oh, you're from Finland as well? Yeah, and Chaga is pretty popular in Finland, is it not?
Speaker 7:I think it probably is, because there's some professors in a university that start teaching it and talking about it, and of course, it's big in Russia.
Speaker 6:Right.
Speaker 7:Because that's where the northern woods that comes from. Yeah, and of course Finland has lots of perched trees Right, and of course Finland has lots of perch trees Right. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's the only mushroom that you can't forage in Finland you have to forage everything else but not the chaga.
Speaker 6:Oh, very good. Well, thanks very much for sharing that. Okay, have a great day you too. We interrupt this program to bring you a special offer from Chaga Health and Wellness. If you've listened this far and you're still wondering about this Strange mushroom that I keep talking about and whether you would benefit from it or not, I may have something of interest to you. To thank you for listening to the show, I'm going to make trying Chaga that much easier by giving you a dollar off all our Chaga products at checkout. All you have to do is head over to our website, chagahealthandwellnesscom, place a few items in the cart and check out with the code CANOPY, C-A-N-O-P-Y. If you're new to Chaga, I'd highly recommend the regular Chaga tea. This comes with 15 tea bags per package and each bag gives you around five or six cups of tea. Hey, thanks for listening Back to the episode. Now, what kind of fish do your people catch? I mean, you talked about perch and walleye, but is there?
Speaker 4:other fish as well, absolutely. You know, we catch white bass, we catch white perch, which are designated as non-quota species. Okay, so that means basically they are not restricted in in quantities being caught there. And, uh, we, we catch, uh, rainbow smelt and uh, rainbow smelt is, uh, um, uh, really, uh, uh, an exceptional uh fish. Uh, going back, uh, you know, decades, I remember, you know, going to the beaches and people would just, you know, hoop, net them and just bring them in and fry them up, right, I mean, I don't know if you've had the benefit of experiencing that, but that's usually brings back a lot of good memories for people that have been around in those generations.
Speaker 6:Oh yeah, that was a part of my wayward youth, where you head down to the beach parties to smelt fish the end of April, beginning of May, when they would come in en masse to spawn, and you had these, what was it? Six-foot, four-foot dip nets that you'd dip in the water, and I can recall when we first started doing it it was sometimes there was so many smelt that it was hard to lift the net out, but then later on the population just seemed to decline substantially and I think you would be seeing the same with the rainbow smelt populations is substantially lower than it was in the past. Yes, no.
Speaker 4:Yes, the populations have decreased. They're still doing well enough. Uh, you know we haven't had any uh quota cuts, uh, recently. I, I believe you know fish um will change their um, their ways and and how they do things based on environmental conditions. And you know, as you could imagine, on lake erie we've had, you know, mussels impact the environment. Um, you know, their, their warming has an impact and, uh, you know, right now we're working very hard also in trying to analyze and do some research on nutrient loading into the lake Because, for those that don't know, you get phosphorus and runoff from farming and fertilizers etc. That go into the lake and it creates algal blooms right which later decay and as they decay and hit the bottom, they deplete oxygen out of the water and create oxygen-deprived zones or hypoxic, creates hypoxic conditions. So fish tend to, you know, leave those areas and go towards other areas where they can breathe, right, of course.
Speaker 6:So, yeah, so, and I know that now, where are they commercially harvesting smelt? I'm asking for another person. We did a podcast with Lawrence, who actually what Lawrence does is he drives down to southwestern Ontario to pick up smelt because he sells them as uh for uh dog treats and dog food. Uh, it seems to be a big, big seller in that sector. But uh, whereabouts are they commercially catching uh smell?
Speaker 4:so most of it is caught in the east end of the lake uh, port dover okay, lake erie yes, in lake erie, just lake erie.
Speaker 4:Yep, just lake, just Lake Erie. That's the predominant site where you're going to find that. And you know, great Lakes Fish Company is a member of our association and they do by far the most smelt. And then there are obviously other facilities, like Pristif Foods. They process a lot of rainbow smelt as well. Who is that Pristif Foods and process a lot of rainbow smelt as well? Who is that Pristif Foods? And they're located in LA. Where are they? In Wheatley, ontario. So that's H-E-A-T-L-E-Y. Okay, yep, yeah. So there's a few processors that do it. Great Lakes is the largest and they have. It's really quite the treat to, you know, go on site and view how all of this happens. And they take the smelt and they head it and gut it and freeze it. And they take the smelt and they head it and gut it and freeze it. And you know, they get the quote-unquote dressers which are the size large enough to actually dress in that way, and then others that are smaller are frozen whole and sold overseas into Asia.
Speaker 6:Oh, okay, yeah, and the smaller ones are the ones that Lawrence picks up for his dog food treat program, because they're heads on and everything Very small kind of smelt for a lot of them. But those are. What grade did you call them?
Speaker 4:Well, the dressers as I refer to are the larger sizes that are able to be dressed and dressed, meaning you're heading and gutting them.
Speaker 6:Right Interesting. So what about other fish like deepwater ciscoes, herring and that sort of stuff? Is there any commercial activity in those areas as well? And is it just the Great Lakes that your members are on, or are they on other lakes as well?
Speaker 4:Other lakes too. Lake Superior is known to have a lot of cisco lake huron whitefish. Unfortunately, whitefish has taken a bit of a beating, let's call it, because of the mussels in those areas that have taken virtually most of the nutrients out and, as you could imagine, the food that the lake whitefish eats is less is not in abundance anymore, right? So they've had some difficulties trying to rehabilitate. You know the whitefish in Lake Huron specifically.
Speaker 6:So we briefly talked, but we should just kind of go in and where the determined limits. They change every year. You mentioned about the committee that reviews all that. Maybe just kind of give it and refresh us on exactly how a lot of that takes place.
Speaker 4:Sure. So you know we meet typically in March is when the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. They hold a meeting whereby all the stakeholders commercial fishers, anglers and governing bodies from the various states come together to really run through analyses and communicate and talk and listen to speakers who are presenting their, you know their findings, you know for the prior years of data, right, and you know. Then you know the managers, or you know the lake managers typically meet and collectively try to, you know, determine, you know what the best course of action is. If there's an item, for example, that maybe is under duress, well then they may look at. You know cutting quotas, you know. So, in order for us to have a responsible fishery, we need to have good active management policies, right, and how this occurs, and yeah, so they need and decisions are made.
Speaker 4:And again, there's modeling. It's very complex. I mean, when you think about it, no one truly knows how many fish are in a lake, right? Right, you're running different types of programs Like, for example, with the Ontario Commercial Fisheries Association and the Ministry of Natural Resources. We have a partnership program whereby we have commercial fishers with some vessel technicians on board and we set nets with mesh sizes that range in size from very small to very large, and we try to basically sample various sites across the lake right and we collect data and present that to the ministry. And then we also have commercial fish harvest data. So every time a commercial fish vessel lands their fish they have to complete a daily catch report and that catch report is gonna have important information related to your most basic, like the date, date, who the vessel captain is, the gear type that they're using, set duration, water temperature, the zone that you're fishing in, what body of water, and then you have all of the items that you caught and the estimated weights for each item and it's quite comprehensive.
Speaker 6:Right and there have to be a lot of factors. And I know I ran a charter boat for about five years on Lake Ontario it was a 26 foot, chris and anyways and I recall we were out there the last weekend in April and what had happened was the entire month of April it was very light Southern breeze that was coming in and what was happening was that the sun would warm the water and then the light southern breeze would blow that surface water over to our side of the lake, the north side of the lake, and we had a substantially warm section of water there. We were swimming in Lake Ontario the last weekend in April with my brother-in-law, rick, out there. But you can only go for about the top two feet, three feet, because once you got below that it was cold. But when you get sort of factors like that, that the bait fish will look for the warmer areas because that's where their food is, and then the large predator fish come in, whether it's the wall or or.
Speaker 6:At that time we were looking for salmonoids, you know the, the, the kings, the chinooks, the, the cohoes, the rainbows and and browns and and actually lake lake trout as well. We were we caught. But uh, when that happens, certainly it would kind of um increase the numbers of fish in an area. But all these, that's where the expertise comes in to realize those factors when they're doing those determining it, to make sure that that's considered in, to make sure that the the harvest limits are very sustainable right, because you'd hate to overestimate or underestimate a sampling you're taking based on environmental conditions.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 6:Yeah, yeah, and I know that some of it is the predator fish that were in there.
Speaker 6:And I had this with the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission where we talked about some of the issues as brought forward to me, when there was agreement with all the jurisdictions on the Great Lakes about the number of salmon I'd put in the lakes, and those numbers were determined at the peak of the derbies that were taking place and all these you know, the Star of the Sun, the local Metroland, the this Week papers all had derbies all across the Great Lakes and were removing hundreds of thousands of tonnage of predator fish. But once the cycle had gone through and there was no longer these derbies, it made it difficult because the number of salmonoids were still, the commitment to put them in for the recreational fishermen were still there and effectively consuming a lot of the prey fish that was out there and reduce the number of prey fish. And so is there predator fish that target the areas that you whether it's the walleye, the perch, the smelt or the ciscos and other things that would consume a lot of those that need to be managed as well.
Speaker 4:Right. So really, when you think of walleye, it's the apex of the predators right in the lake. And walleye, what we have determined recently by doing stomach sample studies with the ministry is they change their diet actually when they're very young and I would say year. We call them yearlings or um, uh in in age. They tend to eat, uh, uh, predate on perch and and then, after they get a little larger, they tend to uh go after different species like, uh, you know, shiners and uh, emerald greens and things of that nature. But on the lake right now I would say the walleye are in the biggest spotlight as far as predators are concerned. In other lakes, like Lake Ontario, you have lake trout, right? Yeah, lake trout is a big predator too, and the same would exist in Lake Huron as well. You know, lake Trout is the biggest predator there and there are some thoughts around that, maybe contributing to some of the difficulties we've had in whitefish, because maybe they might predate on the same food sources. Right, they compete for the same forage. Yep.
Speaker 6:Yep, well, and certainly your industry, with setting quotas, would make sure that there's sustainable populations and that you don't get disease and a lot of things like that, that when you get overpopulations or smaller sizes as a result of lack of prey fish that are available, and so setting those quotas is very important to make sure that people understand that these things not only help the industry but it also sets sustainability within the Great Lakes and the fish that are out there.
Speaker 4:Right, and you know we use sustainability a lot in our conversation today and I guess I'd be reminiscent if I didn't mention that you know walleye, yellow perch and lake erie are actually msc certified fish, meaning the marine stewardship council, which is a globally uh recognized uh body that has standards for sustainability and they're quite rigorous standards that you've got to meet, and not just once but every year on an ongoing basis. Uh, so yellow perch and walleye lake here are actually certified sustainable and globally recognized. And that gives us our facilities, who also in turn have to be certified themselves, to carry these goods and sell them as certified goods. But it gives them the ability to use the MSC logo and if you think about it, if you ever ordered a Filet-O-Fish sandwich from McDonald's, they have that little fish insignia with MSC and that's the logo that accredits that it's been produced by sustainable fish. Oh, very interesting.
Speaker 6:So places like McDonald's and things like that, so where are your fish getting sold and you know, around the world? You mentioned and places like that.
Speaker 4:Yes, you know I have to say that the majority of fish that we produce and distribute end up in the Midwest and you know states like Michigan, minnesota, wisconsin, ohio, illinois, that's where a lot of it goes. Some of it is sold domestically here throughout Ontario, and you know Toronto is a big market, montreal is a big market and then also, you know, depending on seasonality, we do sell a lot of goods into Swedeneden like yellow perch fillets and uh and and walleye into france sometimes too, uh, but uh yeah, fish are generally uh sold in uh various areas, uh, depending on, you know, demand and and also seasonality here locally yeah I.
Speaker 6:I was in Costco the other day and I happened to see wild caught walleye in there. Would those predominantly be Ontario walleye out of Lake Erie?
Speaker 4:That's out of Lake Erie. Yeah, I know the process that does that business. Yeah.
Speaker 6:You know, it's too bad that we can't get that listed somehow. On some of those things, that people realize that where these fish are being caught and that it's sustainably done by organizations like yours, right, right, yeah, so are you, vito? Are you involved in the caged fish industry as well as your people handle that?
Speaker 4:So we, what we do, is we trade fish with them.
Speaker 4:We procure fish from basically really pens that are located in Georgian Bay, right where steelhead are cultivated there, and there's actually a real nice operation out of St Thomas, ontario, where there's a nice processing facility and, due to the nature of the goods that they're processing you're doing aquaculture you're able to really produce a fish that's cookie cut in size.
Speaker 4:So meaning it gives you some advantages because now you can actually automate, right, you can build automation and you know, when I went through the facility I was just blown away by how few people they have on site and it's all automated, the whole process from the beginning right to end, right until it gets to a box, and it's an exceptional product as well, as you can imagine. The shelf life is very good and it's a big part of our businesses because we use it to supplement our fish. When we're selling fish into the United States in grocers like Myers and Kroger etc. We're looking for that type of business where we call it like a ruby red trout, so it really looks nice in the counters and counters and right to our walleye and perch and other goods.
Speaker 6:So it's a really nice complement, uh, to our lineup of goods that we offer yeah, there was a um, a relative of a guy by the name of hockey pans out there listening with no mike meeker, um, or no, sorry, howie meeker and he had a Mike Meeker who had a caged fish operation up on Manitoulin Island that I happened to tour and look at and it was very interesting and some of the concerns and what they checked is, for example, when you have these, basically they're what Large nets that the fish live in, right?
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 6:And some of it is the fecal contamin, potential fecal contamination. As the fish eat they go to the bathroom and it falls to the, the bottom of the water, to the lake there and, if you have it concentrated in area, potential problems. But mike was telling me at that time when I saw his operation, that there was no issues at all because they get tested for all that kind of thing to make sure that it's not a problem as well. And those are just some of the things that take place with, for example, the cage operations, correct that is correct, and and and their site placement is so important.
Speaker 4:And it should be noted too that there's a lot of benefits that have come out of that too, meaning, a lot of the feed that they put in there comes. It doesn't stay in that caged area. A lot of the feed that they put in there doesn't stay in that caged area. A lot of it gets out too, and other fish tend to eat it too.
Speaker 6:Yeah and yeah. So it was an interesting operation and it was rather large where they were and it was very well regulated, from what I saw and everything that I checked it out when I happened to see that operation. But it was just another way that we can provide stable, sustainable food in an environmentally friendly way for people to enjoy.
Speaker 4:Right. All excellent sources of protein for everyone.
Speaker 6:Yeah, so, vito, tell us some of the predator fish that are out there that would attack your populations, like we mentioned about the lake trout and the deepwater ciscos but and you mentioned walleye are at the top apex, but the smelt what's consuming a lot of those? And and is there things that need to be done in that industry to make sure that, for example, the, the salmonoids, the, the chinooks, the, the cohos, the, the rainbows, the browns and all those that are released out there are not competing with your industry or consuming too much because they're not being regulated by, basically, the recreational industry out there?
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know this is an ongoing challenge we have, you know, especially when you're sharing a resource with another country, right, another state. And you know Lake Huron is a prime example whereby on the Michigan side they routinely stock lake trout and it is strongly believed on the Canadian side by a lot of the commercial fishers that that is creating a lot of problems for the lake whitefish right, competing for resources. And it's been a real challenge in trying to deliver that message. And you know, being that on the US side the angling is a big principal business there for tourism etc. You know it's important for them to have, you know, lake trout and different various samanoids you know, stocked right, Right, but from an environmental perspective it does create other problems with domestic species.
Speaker 4:And you know, right now I would say I mean we've talked about, you know, predatory fish, but really the biggest concern I have, you know, is is uh invasive species right, when you, when you think about uh I don't know if you've heard much about asian carp right, oh yeah, the potential of, you know, migrating in and you know there's various electrified fences and controls put in place to try to uh mitigate entrance, you know, into the great Lakes water system, because if that were to happen, jerry, that would be catastrophic to all of the Great Lakes, because they are ferocious eaters and they reproduce several times a year. So they'll just yeah, they'll just, you know, just take all resources away from our domestic species and, yeah, it'll be a big problem. So that's an ongoing issue that we're always looking at ways and working with organizations and trying to mitigate something like that from happening.
Speaker 6:Yeah, certainly the Asian carp is a big concern for a lot of individuals and to try and do what they can.
Speaker 6:In the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission certainly we talked about a lot of that and what they're trying to do to make sure it doesn't become a major problem.
Speaker 6:But you know and half that is a lot of these species were brought in for food sources for communities and they've gotten away and it's obviously problematic in some areas. We've got to make sure it doesn't happen here. Right, and I know, vito, when I was minister, one of the discussions I had was that there was Atlantic salmon being released on the US side, up in Sault Ste Marie, michigan, and those Atlantics were actually now starting to spawn in Ontario streams. So even though they're released on the US side, they were actually spawning in Ontario. So it was starting to expand. And I don't have a problem with Atlantic's. I'm pretty much I think that Atlantic's are a good species from my own perspective, but that's a personal thing, but then everybody else has their opinion on that. But when you start to do that, you have to make sure that you've got agreements because obviously, like you just finished saying, it impacts other areas and what happens and the lake trout is is a perfect example that you just said.
Speaker 4:Right, you know, and and you know, it just reminds me, you know, of some conversation, and I love talking to the old guys that have been doing this, you know, for decades.
Speaker 4:These guys are well into their 70s, but you know, quote, unquote they told me, basically, you know, fish don't have passports, right, they just they go wherever they go, and so you have to really study each situation and realize that whatever you introduce into the environment, you know, there could be repercussions down the road for other areas. Right, and we share this resource and, you know, with the United States, and've been great partners and we work very well together. Do we have challenges here? Yes, of course, as you could imagine, there are certain things that we'd like to see change, and I'm sure on the US side, they have certain things they'd like to see changed in the way we do things in Canada. But, all in all, though, it should be noted that this is a great working relationship that we've got the GLFC and I realize you've had a guest on there representing them. They could attest to this and they're instrumental in helping us facilitate, you know, this arrangement whereby we can, you know, work together in the best interest for everybody at the table.
Speaker 6:Yeah, well, I think, vito, knowledge is power and understanding of what's happening, and the more people gain an understanding of the sustainability of your industry.
Speaker 6:And I know, when I prior to even being minister, when I was an elected official I developed a technology that we actually put swim-up hatcheries inside schools and essentially what we did was we took IEDAP rainbow trout eggs with the Ministry of Natural Resources Actually we started with a group that was doing electroshocking and collecting their own eggs, but then, because they wanted to make sure that they were disease-free, the ministry then started to provide eggs for these classrooms and what we did was because with Rainboy you have to keep the water cold we developed a technology and we put in about a dozen 16 schools in the area these fish hatcheries.
Speaker 6:It was a swim-up hatchery and then the kids would watch it in the grade schools and high schools and then, when it came time that the fish swam up and they absorbed the yolk sacs, then we'd take the kids down and release them to the streams the Oshawa Creek here in Oshawa or some of the other tributaries in the area and the kids gain an understanding of how that worked and what happens in the life cycle of, for example, a Chinook that comes up, lays its eggs and dies and it's just like, oh, that's bad. Well, I said, well, wait a sec, what do you think eats the carcasses? And the bugs eat it. And what do you think the fish eat the bugs. So it's a whole life cycle there. And so kids are gaining that knowledge, and what we've done here is we've certainly given some more knowledge and understanding of your industry as a whole that takes place in Ontario.
Speaker 4:I hope so. Yes, and you know it's great, and I think we never stop learning and when it comes to the resource, we need to be informed and it is so important to our generation other generations for a variety of reasons recreationally and for sustenance, for excellent source of protein. And yeah, absolutely I agree, jared.
Speaker 6:So Vito, how do people find out more information or details about your organization and how do they get in touch with you? How can people find out more? Where can they find the details about your, your association?
Speaker 4:Sure. So we have a web presence, as you can imagine, and our web address is ocfaca, so very simple, it's the acronym for the Ontario Commercial Fisheries Association, and on there we, you know we have a lot of information, you know, around. Right now we're planning our upcoming convention in January in Niagara Falls, whereby we meet with our peers and we talk about these very topics that we talked today. And we have other information too, related, to, you know, the how quotas work, how the licensing works in the province, and and also statistical information we provide too with respect to landings of by species and a historical chart and valuations, etc. So a great source of information there and on there. Obviously, I can be reached. My email address is on there and phone number too, happy to answer any questions anyone may have.
Speaker 6:Well, thanks very much, vito, I very much appreciate it. I think you've informed not only myself but a lot of our listeners about the industry and what happens out there, and it's just something a little bit different about. You know, our title is Under the Canopy, and it's a different kind of canopy we were talking about. It's under the surface, this one, and it's something that people are learning out there under the canopy in a different kind of way. Thanks a lot for being on the show today, vito.
Speaker 4:Thank you, thanks for having me.
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