In response to that, I think I'll echo what you've heard today: The system we have is working.
The way I see it is that if you have a whale, you want to have a bubble of protection around it as it's moving. Obviously, you need to know where it is. Then you need to remove those threats, be they shipping or rope in the water. I think the closures are good, and they are working, although there are refinements. As we learn more and know more, there will be continual understanding and refinement of the measures we have.
We have seen some changes happening in the closures. For instance, we no longer have closures in under 20 fathoms. That's where we took the science of the whale and how the whales are using the environment. We don't need to do closures in certain areas.
I think that is what's important. That is what's going to help everyone. We need to continue to have measures. Unfortunately, this is not a problem that's going to go away. We're going to have to do this over the long term. We would like to see a permanent system in place so that there is more certainty and fishermen know each year that this is coming and is going to happen. We continue to do those refinements with all the information we're learning so that we can zero in on what the true solution is.
Again, this is why the science needs to be funded, why necropsies need to be funded and why we need to fund our disentanglement folks. They're the ones who are going out and getting the gear so that we can figure out where it came from or what kind of gear it is. All of that information helps us refine the solution that benefits everyone in the end.