It's a good question. Thank you.
We manufacture an alternative bait, so there are ingredients in it.... It's all fish, but some of the ingredients that are being used now, I guess in alternative baits, regularly wouldn't pass the conditions required by the Department of Marine Resources. I think as fishermen start switching to alternatives there's a danger in.... We do the risk assessments and the studies so that we know we're not going to negatively impact the biomass or the lobster...or that we're going to give something to a lobster that somebody's going to eat.
I also think, with proper chain of custody, it avoids a lot of the undeclared catch or any of the cash stuff that goes on and whatever happens. There's a lot of product coming and going for cash, and it takes care of that, which helps people track. DFO, if they want accurate stats, they need to have an accurate recording of what's being sold and what's being used.
For some of the custom baits, the first thing we do before we introduce a species for bait is that we'll put it through a risk assessment so that we know it's safe for the biomass and it's also safe for human consumption if the lobster is eating it and then somebody is eating the lobster. That's what I think. Something like that's important for Canada.