Mr. Chair and members of the committee, good afternoon.
My name is Philippe Cormier. I'm an engineer and naval architect, and president of CORBO Consulting Engineering, a New Brunswick firm founded in 2007 that employs approximately 40 engineering and architectural professionals.
As you know, in 2017, Gulf region snow crabbers were quite shocked to find dead North Atlantic right whales entangled in their fishing gear. Because I had worked regularly with fishers, the associations representing them came to me to find ways to reduce the impact of commercial fishing on that species.
From 2018 on, with help from the Atlantic fisheries fund, we carried out an initial three-year project and assessed 19 very broad solutions, which led us to quickly develop world-class expertise.
Without going into too much detail, we were among the first to test rope-free technologies for commercial fishing. We helped create the first low breaking strength ropes. We looked at existing fishing techniques and how fishing ropes behaved in the water—basically, all kinds of technologies and methods to help us mitigate past, current and future risk.
We worked with several snow crab and lobster fisher associations all over Atlantic Canada and Quebec, and brought to the forefront the ongoing efforts of Canadian fishers and the Canadian government to ensure that commercial fishing can coexist with North Atlantic right whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Since 2018, a number of national media outlets have reported on this work, as have foreign media outlets The New York Times, the BBC, National Geographic, The Guardian, Smithsonian Magazine, SeafoodNews.com and many others.
After an initial round of testing that cast a wide net, since 2020 we've been focusing our efforts on the techniques that we believe hold the most promise for risk reduction.
In 2021, with help from the folks at the DFO and the Atlantic fisheries fund, we became the first in the world to have a commercial fishery in closed areas using rope-free systems. During the 2022 season, over 20 fishers took part in a trial, catching over 203 metric tonnes of snow crab using 1,000 traps without any vertical rope in the water that could put marine mammals at risk.
While these trials have yielded very positive results, we still have several technical and logistical challenges to overcome before this option can be implemented on a larger scale. It's important to note that this tool should allow fishers who wish to do so to continue fishing in closed areas in the presence of North Atlantic right whales. It would be impractical, unsustainable and, most importantly, unsafe if this option were used outside of closed areas or fishing grounds not suitable for this solution.
Another technology we're putting a lot of effort into is the use of low breaking strength or weak link ropes. The theory is that this technology would allow a fishing line to break at a tension of less than 1,700 pounds, or 770 kg, whereas the lines currently used are nearly 20 times stronger.
Although we've crafted tools that support the use of low breaking strength rope, our results show that a few more years of research, development and testing are needed before we can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that this solution will not create any more risk than the current situation does for the North Atlantic right whale, the environment and fishing crews.
Finally, in partnership with the Acadian Croppers Association and the ghost gear fund, we're in the midst of a recovery operation, seeking abandoned, lost or discarded traps on the ocean floor that no longer have a buoy on the surface allowing us to easily locate and recover them. We believe that hundreds of thousands of these traps currently lie on the ocean floor.
I'd like to conclude by saying that there's no silver bullet to solve the problem yet, but we have covered an incredible distance in just five years. I can assure you that we're way ahead of our neighbours to the south. The secret to our current and future success can be summed up in a few points.
FIrst, the speed with which fishers decided to tackle the problem head on and their commitment to finding effective and sustainable solutions. In addition, the bond of trust that's developed between fishers, engineers, scientists and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The funding provided by the Canadian government and the provinces that made it possible to carry out these experiments. Finally, the time the DFO put into getting it right science-wise instead of imposing a regulatory disaster, which could have been even more damaging to the ecosystems than the initial situation.
Thank you for your attention.