Fisheries committee  Thank you for the question. In the Gulf of St. Lawrence, we fish with trapnets, a buoy, a rope and a trap. These are singles, to use the term used in Newfoundland. Given the density of traps in the same zones, using Japanese traps in line or a trawl would cause a lot of overlap between fishing gear.

Fisheries committee  Thank you for your question. I said earlier that we had concerns about weak rope and links. Those discussions with the department will continue in November and December. The gear requirement will come into force in January. That's pretty soon considering we still don't have a solution.

Fisheries committee  I think the responsible and reasonable thing to do is to give fishers a bit more flexibility and carry out sea trials on a broader scale. That way, we could really measure the effects of the rope. As you are well aware, Mr. Cormier, our crabbers are large vessels with heavy equipment.

Fisheries committee  Thank you for your question. When it comes to the many flights conducted by DFO and the conservation and environmental protection people, I don't have the cost information at hand either. No doubt, there's a significant difference in cost between the use of sonobuoys and the use of aircraft surveillance.

Fisheries committee  Thank you for your question. Right whales have distinct markings on their heads called callosities, so they can be identified individually once they have reached adulthood. Calves don't yet have those markings. Entanglement markings and scarring also help to identify right whales quite easily and quickly.

Fisheries committee  Thank you for your question. Yes, research is under way, but the findings haven't been released yet. The idea is to deploy a number of sonobuoys to determine the location of the whales through triangulation. That information will tell us where the closure should be put in place.

Fisheries committee  That's something we hear a lot. All research comes down to funding. In my opening remarks, I thanked the Government of Canada and the Government of New Brunswick for supporting our work. Without their financial help, we wouldn't be able to make advancements in any area of research.

Fisheries committee  As I said, a transiting whale should not automatically trigger a season-long closure of certain grids. It should depend on the presence of an aggregation of whales, in other words, a number of whales socializing or feeding in a specific area. I think that would result in seasonal closures that were more reasonable and more relevant to whale protection.

Fisheries committee  As I mentioned earlier, we think it's possible to change and improve the closure measures. Two types of dynamic closures exist. When a right whale is spotted, a temporary closure is put in place. If another right whale is spotted on day nine or 15 of the closure, the fishery is closed for the season.

Fisheries committee  I completely agree with that. We are well aware that sonobuoys and visual surveillance using aircraft aren't perfect tools. The reopening of an area requires two surveillance flights during the period. Sometimes the weather prevents aircraft from taking off, but the buoy is still there.

Fisheries committee  Thank you for your question. I'll talk a bit about the buoyless ropeless fishing gear we've been testing for three years. It's a new acoustics-based technology, so obviously there's a cost attached to it. Each unit costs roughly $5,000. The harvesters who did the testing had five units, so the total cost was around $25,000.

Fisheries committee  Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to your meeting. My name is Martin Noël. I am a snow crab fisherman from Shippagan, New Brunswick. I am a boat captain and the owner of a family business spanning three generations of fishermen. New measures were imposed on the industry in 2018, such as the static closure of teeming fishing zones as well as a dynamic closure as soon as whales are spotted.