I don't want to drop the minimum legal size. I have distributed one that says “Percentage of lobsters which reproduce below the minimum legal size”. You have that chart in front of you. The top number you'll see if you go up and across is that 83 millimetres is the legal size and 90 millimetres is the size at which 50% of the females are mature. If we catch the lobster at that carapace size, 10% to 15% of the females will have the chance to reproduce.
If we take another one, which is P.E.I. southern gulf, 68.5 millimetres was the size that was the minimum legal size, but 70.5 millimetres is the size at which 45% of the females that are caught at that size are mature.
If you look in the Bay of Fundy area down to Southwest Nova, 82.5 millimetres is the market size at which they land the lobsters, but 97 millimetres is the size at which 50% of the females are mature. So only 2% of the females that are caught at that size have actually reproduced or have had the chance to reproduce. It is very risky in the Bay of Fundy, as you see, compared to other areas in Atlantic Canada.
What the FRC proposes is that you should try to have 50% of the females having a chance to reproduce before you catch them. However, in areas such as southwest Nova Scotia and the Bay of Fundy, where it is so far off, then for God's sake, please protect the large females by leaving them in the water.
We have a graph as well that shows how many eggs a female produces. As you go to your bottom access, if you go right you get to 100 millimetres, you'll see 20,000 eggs are produced, but if you have a female that's 150 millimetres, 160 millimetres, you're up to 80,000 eggs produced. Not only are there more of those eggs, but they are healthier. They're larger and there's a better chance they will survive.
The other reason why minimum legal size is very important is that it's measurable and it's enforceable.
You try to keep as many females as possible, because egg production in the lobster fishery is very important.
The other question pertained to the risk. The major difference between 2007 and 1995 is that there are no fewer vessels in the fishery. There are more of them. They're larger and more powerful. They cover more of the fishing grounds. They start fishing at night, not only in the day, because they're limited by season and by trap limits.
We heard in spades at consultation that a lot of fishermen are fishing beyond their limit because it's very hard to enforce trap limits. If you're in some areas like the south shore of Nova Scotia and southwest Nova Scotia, just for example, if you go out 50 miles and you have 200 miles of coastline, to have a patrol boat haul every buoy out there is virtually impossible.
What we state in the report is that most of the cheating that is going on is by commercial harvesters using illegal traps. The lobsters they land are legal, but how they caught them is not. And it's difficult to pinpoint how and who is doing that.