What I would say with respect to the herring stocks themselves is that we know, as Kent has pointed out, that the role of natural mortality and the reproductive state, the productivity of the stocks, the impacts of climate change—all of those factors—are having a significant impact on the recovery of these stocks.
There are no silver bullets. There are no easy answers. We work with the fishing industry to identify a harvest level that's appropriate for the stock, recognizing that fishing mortality is the primary lever at our disposal, but equally recognizing, as Mr. Fast pointed out, that herring continues to be a key source for bait in the lobster and crab fisheries. It continues to provide an economic benefit to coastal communities.
While one could look at the state of some herring stocks and say that the harvest should be set to zero, there are various other factors that need to be considered on a stock-by-stock basis. Such consideration is what we do, and it is what has led to the management decisions currently in place.
Certainly they are all informed by the best available science. As Kent pointed out, science always wants more data and more information, but a prioritization has to take place as well. No one has infinite resources, so DFO science distributes the resources at our disposal across stocks, trying to allocate them to the stocks in a manner that achieves as robust a suite of scientific information as possible by which to manage all the fisheries.