The Department of Fisheries and Oceans held it’s annual round-table on Thursday.
It included about 50 governmental and non-governmental representatives and members of Indigenous communities.
In addition to reviewing the results of the 2019 North Atlantic Right Whale management measures, they discussed options for the 2020 season.
Attendees agreed that more can be done to prevent entanglement, including changes to fishing gear.
In the coming months, DFO will continue working with harvesters, technical experts, non-government and government agencies to share information and learn about technologies and programming aimed at the prevention, reduction, and retrieval of lost fishing gear.
Industry stakeholders also expressed that they would like changes to the opening dates in the snow crab Area 12 fishery.
DFO is currently working with the fishing industry and Indigenous groups who are active in Area 12 to find ways to maximize the amount of harvesting activity that can occur before the likely arrival of North Atlantic right whales in 2020.
Participants expressed that due to the variability of whale distribution from year to year, fisheries management measures needed to be more adaptive, with a focus on temporary closures triggered by whale sightings.
No decisions were made at this meeting. Management measures for 2020 will be communicated in the new year.
