Monday, December 30, 2024 at 02:18:33 p.m. AST, John Bagnall wrote the following letter.
Hi Marc. Besides getting bass down to an acceptable level for salmon, another issue our group is interested in is hatchery supplementation. We could produce 20 million eggs annually through a SAS program at a renovated Southesk hatchery. However, we’d never have the incubation and early rearing facilities to produce fry from them. This is why we want permission to stock the pre-spawning adults.
We’d follow the mitigation strategy that has already been developed for SAS with the possible exception of not stocking more fish than currently contribute to the wild population. (By the time the SAS fish are ready, the deposition on the NW/LSW will be 0.25 eggs per m^2 or lower, and we could introduce SAS fish that would increase this by 1 egg per m^2 or more.) The fish would be already imprinted and would save a huge amount of effort to produce fry that would have only a small fraction of the results of an adult release.
Marc, this is an emergency, one that requires urgent action, not small experimental-level measures.
Happy upcoming New Year Marc.
The following was then written back to John Bagnall by Marc LeCouff’s Admin Assistant:
Good morning John,
Marc is out of office until Monday.
Can we look to booking for Thursday January 8 instead? That would give Marc more time to prepare.
Thank you for confirming!
Janelle Léger
Administrative Assistant | Adjointe administrative
Fisheries and Harbour Management | Gestion des Pêches et des Ports
Gulf Region |Région du Golfe
Fisheries and Oceans Canada | Pêches et Oceans Canada
Janelle.leger@dfo-mpo.gc.ca (506)377-6540
From: John Bagnall
Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2024 3:09 PM
To: LeCouffe, Marc (DFO/MPO)
Cc: Alex Mills ; Karl Wilson
Subject: Re: Possible Meeting?
Hi again Marc. Alex Mills and Karl Wilson (cc’ed and who are the other Canadians in our group) were inquiring about a time for the meeting. Alex will be coming up from Halifax. He will also forward a few discussion points to you over the next couple of days.
All the best Marc.
From: Alex Mills
Sent: Monday, January 6, 2025 12:12 PM
To: LeCouffe, Marc (DFO/MPO)
Cc: johnbagnall ; Karl Wilson ; Leger, Janelle (DFO/MPO)
Subject: RE: Meeting DFO headquarters , University Avenue , Moncton NB
Marc
Thanks for agreeing to meet on Wednesday January 8, at 10 am with Karl Wilson, John Bagnall and me as representatives from Save Miramichi Salmon Inc .
Could you confirm the location. I assume it is at the DFO building on University Ave.
I am sending along some points that we would want to cover in the meeting .
1 Identify and introduce our group
2 Science and management Failures
3 Remediations:
- a Net fishery
- b Sport fishery
- c Enhancement
- d Management
We appreciate the opportunity to meet and discuss the pressing issues facing the Miramichi.
Thank you.
Alex Mills