Definitely. Lac Saint-Pierre is a widening of the St. Lawrence. At one end, in Sorel, the catch limit is 50 yellow perch, and that's also the case slightly downstream from the bridge, towards the Batiscan sector. The restriction applies only to the Lac Saint-Pierre sector. Area experts probably wanted to protect reproduction areas by preventing yellow perch fishing there.

We think that's ridiculous. The only measures that were taken came from the Réseau de suivi ichtyologique, or RSI. The measures, in our view, don't provide an accurate picture but, instead, may serve to describe a trend. We asked the ministry to tell us what available biomass it used to ascertain the number of yellow perch in Lac Saint-Pierre and determine whether stocks were actually dropping significantly. When the moratorium was lifted, everyone expected the catch limit to go up by 10 to 50 because yellow perch can be found all over the lake.

The RSI is the only authority claiming that the yellow perch population has declined or disappeared. We told them that they were indeed right that no more yellow perch remained in the sample areas, but we also pointed out that it was the result of cyanobacteria—a proven fact—and agricultural waste.

The yellow perch changed their patterns. They migrated around the lake and changed their location. Obviously, if the samples don't come from the areas with yellow perch, the findings will be negative. Better measures are needed to manage the biomass and ascertain how many yellow perch there are.

We've realized that slaughtering cormorants is the key because they are responsible for an excessive predation of young yellow perch. Everyone wants to focus on setting up reproduction areas, but what's the point given that we know the growing cormorant population will just eat the yellow perch. Just to give you a sense of the scale involved, 30 tons of yellow perch between the ages of 0 and 2 years is equivalent to an annual commercial catch of 200 tons once they become adults. The pressure is much too strong. And, as everyone knows, the province is responsible for the cormorant, which isn't a protected species.

It's really important to bring these cormorant populations under control to give yellow perch populations the opportunity to brood year after year and allow for better reproduction. We are calling for tighter control of the cormorant population to generate more representative cohorts of yellow perch and ensure their reproduction.

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