Thank you, Madam Chair and committee members.

My name is Dr. Moira Brown. I'm a senior scientist with the Canadian Whale Institute located on Campobello Island, New Brunswick, off the shores of the Bay of Fundy. I'm also a scientist emerita at the New England Aquarium in Boston, Massachusetts. My research career has spanned 39 years and has been focused on the science and conservation of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale throughout its range in Canada and the United States.

Some of the results of this research have been used to develop right whale recovery and action plans in Canada under the Species at Risk Act. Early on, my conservation work focused on working with the shipping industry to reduce the risk of vessel-whale collisions in the Maritimes. I led a working group of industry stakeholders, scientists, Canadian government regulators and many mariners to gain the adoption of two measures that have reduced the risk of vessel strikes in the Bay of Fundy and south of Nova Scotia in Roseway Basin—the two critical habitats for North Atlantic right whales. Starting in about 2010, right whales demonstrated a shift in their habitat, and many have moved from the Gulf of Maine and the Bay of Fundy to areas in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. However, they still continue to come to the two critical habitat areas, just not for as long or in anywhere near as many numbers.

More recently, I've been working on Canada's response to entangled whales in partnership with the DFO marine mammal response program. The Campobello whale rescue team is part of the Canadian Whale Institute and the primary responder for entangled whales in the waters of the maritime provinces and Quebec. That includes the Bay of Fundy around Nova Scotia, the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence and the St. Lawrence estuary. We've also started working with fish harvesters over the last few years in these waters to try to reduce entanglement through various means, including trials with rope-on-demand technology, also called, by some, “whalesafe gear”.

I continue to participate in several government-led advisory groups to reduce large vessel strikes throughout Canadian waters on the east coast and entanglement in commercial fishing gear. We've had terrific success working with fishers on these issues. Most of the responders on our whale rescue team are actually fish harvesters themselves who started as volunteers in this work and are now on standby to respond about eight months of the year.

I hope I can help you with your questions, and I look forward to it.

Thank you.