Question Period Note: Ropeless Fishing Gear

• Canada’s fishing industry continues to show its leadership to protect North Atlantic right whales through ongoing pilot projects to test ropeless fishing technology.
• This technology allows gear such as traps to be set on the seafloor without persistent vertical ropes connecting them to the surface, which present a threat of entanglement. The vertical rope is triggered electronically only when harvesters arrive to haul the gear.
• Canada authorized the first pilot projects to test this technology in the Gulf of St. Lawrence snowcrab fishery in 2018, and by 2020 upwards of 10 harvesters participated in these pilots with their catch successfully making it to market.
• DFO will continue to support industry-led ropeless gear trials in Canadian waters in 2021 to complement our investments in surveillance, area closures and other management tools to protect right whales.

• The Government of Canada has provided funding for entrepreneurs and the fishing industry for gear development and pilots. For example, there have been 3 years of ropeless gear trials conducted in Atlantic Canada.
• In February 11 and 12, 2020 the Department held the Gear Innovation Summit in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It was the first of its kind in Canada. The purpose was to explore current and emerging whale safe technologies and strategies as well as current and emergent technologies, strategies and programmatic interventions designed to reduce and/or mitigate the risk of abandoned, lost, discarded fishing gear (ALDFG).
• The Summit brought together approximately 250 harvesters, industry representatives, fishing gear developers and manufacturers, scientists, NGOs, marine mammal responders and government officials, from Canada, the United States, and Europe.
• By design, the summit revolved around ideas, perspectives and lessons learned from innovation, trials and lived experiences and raising awareness, and exploring the art of the possible at the intersection of robust fisheries, whale safety, and the environment.
• The first dedicated trials of ropeless fishing in an area closed due to the presence of right whales involved 10 snow crab harvesters in Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence each using a single EdgeTech acoustic release in combination with a 10 pot trawl.
• Gulf of St. Lawrence ropeless effort is expected to span the entire snow crab season in 2021 and expand the number of participants.
• The Canadian Wildlife Federation (CWF) also coordinated experimental ropeless gear trials using devices of four manufacturers including one made in Canada (Ashored Innovations).
• CWF is currently focusing on lobster fisheries in Nova Scotia, PEI and New Brunswick with trials conducted in the off-season.
• Although there have been successes with ropeless gear to date (most notably in the Acadian crab fishery), there have also been challenges.
o Challenges identified to date include: (i) development of a reliable virtual geolocation system that serves enforcement and diverse fishing operations, (ii) detection of deployed surface buoys in high current environments, and (iii) prevention of gear conflicts
• Ropless gear trials have again been authorized in 2021, with the potential for even more harvesters participating. DFO will be working with industry to determine how these trials can proceed in the spring.

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