Thanks.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Gordon Zealand, and I'm executive director of the Yukon Fish and Game Association.

I've had the good fortune to live and work in various parts of Canada, and I just can't imagine a resource that's as important as the sport fishing sector is in all parts of Canada. I mean, to bring it home to the Yukon, what do we have? We have roughly 35,000 people, and we issue almost that many recreational licences. There's no question that it's very important to the people of the Yukon, but I know for a fact that it applies right across Canada.

This is a sector that we need to pay attention to. We often take it for granted and we assume that it's always there. Like all things man interacts with, however, there are consequences. I'm sure everyone is aware of the various issues that have occurred in the provinces.

Now, there's one thing we've done differently in the Yukon that I know hasn't occurred in the other provinces I have lived in. We have not allowed any non-resident species into the Yukon. In other words, no, we don't have walleye or pickerel in the Yukon. We made sure we didn't bring them into the Yukon and stock any of the lakes.

There's one exception to that. It happened when the armed forces were up here building the highway and what have you. Rainbow trout was brought into one section, and that group is still within the Yukon. Actually, we've benefited from it, because we're now using the eggs to stock what we call our stocked lakes. These are lakes within the Yukon that have no outlet or inlet. They're totally contained. If there's one thing we've done well up here, I would suggest that this, in combination with sticking with resident species, is it.

We had one resident from Alberta who spent the entire summer doing nothing but fishing these stocked lakes, which are mainly stocked with rainbow trout and Arctic char. He had a great experience. I couldn't believe what that gentleman was able to record in these various lakes within the Yukon. There's no question that it was an amazing experience for him, and from the information he provided us, we couldn't believe there were that many big stocked rainbow still left in these lakes. In any event, it goes to show that we also take things for granted. We didn't realize the significance.

We did have one issue with an area out near Whitehorse that has hot springs. Some folks decided that perhaps goldfish should be dumped there. As a result, we had quite a population growing. In any event, once we found that out, we managed to eliminate that particular problem. We just went in, killed off that whole section and got rid of that issue. As far as we know, we don't have an issue with the goldfish.

I think I'll just leave it there for my opening comments. In terms of the significance, I'm sure you know, because of your further work and your contact with other folks across Canada, that the recreational fishery is important to so many different people. It affects all ages. It affects all sexes. It's an opportunity to get the population out to enjoy the outdoors as opposed to the electronic world.

I'll leave it there for the moment.