Fisheries committee  We used to fish groundfish a lot, but that's nearly non-existent now, so it's mostly lobster.

Fisheries committee  There are 252 fishermen in area 25. The catches, I would say, are probably down to half from what they used to be in the north zone, and they are probably reduced by two-thirds or more in the south from what the catches were in the late eighties.

Fisheries committee  Yes.

Fisheries committee  On the effort reduction, for example, this year when DFO came out with a 10-year plan, you had to come up with 10 points until 2018, I believe it is. To get some of these points...for example, one of them was to give up a number of traps, and for area 25 what they suggested to get one point was to give up 135 traps.

Fisheries committee  You've got that right. On the days off the season, they suggested two weeks--to shorten it by two weeks to get a couple of points. Well, we're fishing nine weeks now and we're barely surviving. How are we going to do it in seven weeks? We also have people employed. They have to get their weeks of work.

Fisheries committee  To answer your question about the shelving, the reason we did the shelving was that we had a couple of fishermen come to us who were looking to go elsewhere to work for a year. We didn't have enough money to buy them out, but they offered us so much if we'd take them out for a year.

Fisheries committee  Exactly, yes.

Fisheries committee  I agree with you.

Fisheries committee  Good afternoon, everyone. Before I start, I would like to give you a little history of area 25. In the late seventies—I heard someone talk about it earlier—there was a buyout of licences. Quite a few were bought up in our area. In the eighties we started seeing a good rise in the fishing.