Yes, we do, and a lot of that is published in scientific papers.
In the U.S., since 1996, they've had the Atlantic large whale take reduction team, which has been focused on trying to reduce the risks of gear entanglement for right whales in U.S. waters. They've done broad sweeping measures, such as sinking groundline from Florida to the Hague Line, and measures like that. There are some closures. There are a variety of measures.
Right whales are at risk for entanglement wherever there is rope in the water. With the habitat shift out of the Gulf of Maine in the springtime and up into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, there is still risk in the Gulf of Maine, but the animals are feeding up in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. There seem to be lower densities in the Gulf of Maine, including the critical habitat areas in Canadian waters—the Bay of Fundy and Roseway Basin.
We have more of a problem in Canada now than we did before, because when the right whales were in the two critical habitat areas in Fundy and Roseway, it was not during the fishing seasons. The lobster season doesn't start until various times in November. In the Gulf of St. Lawrence, it overlaps with crab fisheries and lobster fisheries.
There's a lot of overlap with right whales and various kinds of fisheries in the U.S. Some have been closed. There have been mortalities. There have been entanglements. All of those numbers exist. I don't have them on the very top of my head, but they could certainly be provided to the committee pretty easily.
I think it's really important for the committee to realize that Canada has done more in five years to reduce risks than the States has done in 25 years. We have a lot of support from industry to try to solve this problem. They want to solve the problem. I've never met a fisherman who wanted to entangle a whale, ever. It's a big pain in the neck for them in a lot of ways.
I think we need to embrace that. We use a lot of measures in Canada that are not used in the States, such as closures. They may or may not recognize that as equivalent. The bottom line is that when an area is closed or there are no ropes in the water because the fishermen in the closed areas are fishing without rope, it's a much safer situation for whales. I think we're there in Canada. We just need to do that in a bigger way, in a bigger area, with more fishermen.