Fisheries committee  Thank you. Today, the closures have had little impact on the Prince Edward Island harvesters, but considering there's really only two years of historical data, the PEIFA is aware their distribution could shift based on their food source. This shift could put the whales in direct

Fisheries committee  I do agree with Arnault's comment on understanding the ecosystem better. I know in one of your previous sessions there were discussions with Matthew Hardy regarding the lobster collector project. To the gentleman from Maine with regard to the conversation about collaboration, I

Fisheries committee  As a biologist, I agree with the protection of larger females, and we have protections in P.E.I. to protect larger females with our windows. We have a mechanism in place there to protect those larger females.

Fisheries committee  Based on the science and the numbers, what we've been told in terms of that window-size lobster and having a maximum size and anything over that is that it doesn't seem to make a significant difference. In terms of actual numbers, if we look at 2017, say, at 25 trips, we returned

Fisheries committee  I wouldn't say that there's no value. I think the question comes down to the significance of the value.

Fisheries committee  No, none at all. The scientific data that we follow are the publications that we've seen through DFO, for the most part. In discussions with Amélie Rondeau at DFO in Moncton, she'll talk about the normal travelling distance of a lobster being approximately 10 to 20 kilometres. Th

Fisheries committee  Yes.

Fisheries committee  From the P.E.I. perspective, there wasn't a whole lot of area that overlapped, but we did discuss a lot with the Maritime Fishermen's Union, because they did have areas that overlapped with the closures that were directly to the coastline. We worked really closely with DFO this p

Fisheries committee  I do, actually. We have a lot of concerns on P.E.I. about the carrying capacity of the species. Basically, there's a lot of talk about productivity and where things are right now in terms of our biomass. Right now our biomass is through the roof, which is great; this is not a com

Fisheries committee  Yes, I feel that looking at the whole ecosystem is definitely a key to understanding everything. We mentioned earlier not just understanding the temperature changes, pH changes, salinity changes and things that are shifting in the actual water chemistry, but how those are shiftin

Fisheries committee  We've had a little bit of information on P.E.I. We see fluctuations in the green crab annually, and it usually comes down to winter temperatures and what we're seeing the following year, based on the temperatures over the winter and if there's a large fluctuation or a small one.

Fisheries committee  On behalf of the approximately 1,200 fishers in P.E.I., I would like to thank you, Mr. Chair and members of this committee, for the invitation to speak to you today. The P.E.I. Fishermen's Association was created in the 1950s and has evolved alongside the Department of Fisheries

Fisheries committee  Yes. I think what it comes down to is understanding the contribution that industry can provide. As I noted in my opening remarks, the harvesters are going to see the changes on the water before DFO scientists ever do. The recommendation would be to make sure DFO is using that kno

Fisheries committee  That is a great question, with a lot of different aspects to it, I think. First, I'll touch on the fact that—

Fisheries committee  I think the area that was overlooked was the observations that fishers have been seeing for years. It was not “new news” that we thought the mackerel fishery was in trouble. For years at the Atlantic mackerel advisory committee table, each organization had been making recommendat