Basically, rather than using trawls to estimate the abundance of capelin, we use an echo sounder that is calibrated so that we can get an estimate of the biomass. It's a commonly used method, used mostly for pelagic species because they have a swim bladder, and you get an echo that comes off the swim bladder. If you can get a relationship between the size of the fish and the strength of the echo, then you can estimate abundance.
So there is a survey that has been going on. It's not as extensive as it was in the 1980s when the entire 2J3KL area was largely sampled, since we have fewer ships and we have fewer people, but it is a good index of the overall biomass of capelin in the system. It has been calibrated relative to the previous estimates to get a sense of whether what we see in 3L is reflective of what we see further north. You can miss some instances, but we also use the bycatch in the capelin research vessel surveys that are done in the fall to give us a sense of whether the capelin are broadly distributed or not. You will miss the fish that are on the bottom when you're doing that, but nevertheless it does provide an index.
We also recently hired two new research scientists, who are going to be working on capelin. One will be dealing mostly with coastal sampling and one will be dealing mostly with offshore sampling. There has been a resurgence in that area. You could say that you could put more people on that, but scientists always say that you could put in more resources and you could get more data.