Share and view ideas: Ghost Gear Program’s Gear Management Survey

The current regulatory regime under the Fisheries Act was not developed with the intent to address ghost gear and responsible gear management throughout its lifecycle. With increased understanding of the importance of preventing and mitigating the impact of ghost gear gained as a result of activities under the Ghost Gear Fund, DFO is exploring the creation of new Gear Management Regulations to strengthen and streamline ghost gear specific measures. The purpose of the Gear Management Regulations will be to:

  • Limit or prevent the additional contribution of ghost gear-related risks and the incremental accumulation of ghost gear in Canadian waters,
  • Retrieve existing ghost gear from Canadian waters, and
  • Dispose of recovered and end-of-life gear responsibly.  

Information has been collected by DFO from partners, Indigenous groups and stakeholders from previous engagement activities, Contribution Agreement reporting, advisory meetings, peer-reviewed publications, public input and feedback and during dedicated ghost gear engagement activities from June-September 2024,  and used to identify key areas of concern regarding ghost gear. The development of the Gear Management Regulations starts with the information that has been collected to date and continues with this survey to seek additional feedback and guidance. Information provided here will be prepared into a What We Heard Report that will be shared for the 2nd International Gear Summit in February 2025 in Moncton. The results of this survey will help inform decision making as we develop the Gear Management Regulations, and return to partners, Indigenous groups and stakeholders once again for review and continued engagement and feedback. 

In this survey there will be questions in the following categories:

  1. Fisheries Management
  2. Gear Storage
  3. Mandatory Lost Gear Reporting
  4. Technology in Ghost Gear
  5. Gear Marking and Tagging
  6. Gear Tracking
  7. Gear Disposal
  8. Ghost Gear Retrieval
  9. Operationalizing Ghost Gear Activities
  10. Next Steps

There will be dedicated questions depending on your responses to Section A to ensure we recieve feedback from appropriate sectors (ie harvesters responding to questions only harvesters would have answers to).