Issues In Sustainable Fisheries Test 1 Study Guide

What is a fishery?

The use of fish by humans

What are the 3 categories of fisheries management?

Recreational (sport), commercial, first nations

Recreational/ sport

money

Commercial

direct human consumption and byproducts

First Nations, Indigenous

subsistence (food,social, ceremonial)

Fisheries Management: what is the processes or steps used?

1. A problem is defined

2. data gets collected

3. stakeholders have input

4. decisions are made (policy)

The history of fisheries management is about?

conflict between people

FMZ

Fisheries Management Zone

Mitigations

when considering develpment that is considered “reasonable” there are manipulations (fish habitat and people)

Atlantic Herring

• pelagic, open water schooling fish

• feed on phyto/zooplankton

• is preyed on by forage fish

• spring spawner

Nov 29,2016

People start seeing herring wash up in
Annapolis Basin near Digby, Smith’s Cove,
Cornwallis

Suspected causes
• Parasite Crytpcotyle lingua?
– Warmer sea temperatures could contribute to this
• Bacterial infection?
– Parasite C. lingua could make fish more susceptible
• Toxic algal bloom?
– Warm waters could be cause
– But more species should be infected

Dec 2, 2016

• Results: first round of disease screening all
came back negative
• DFO labs in Moncton, NB
• Atlantic Veterinary College Charlottetown, PEI

Dec 14, 2016

• Dead and dying herring still washing up
• “about 3,000 gulls” observed
• Discovered in Pubnico now

Advising people not to eat dead animals found
on beach. What about the gulls? ?

Dec 17, 2016 on CBC News

• Over 40 sightings
• Tens of thousands have died
• Die-off is still happening

• Herring die off over 1 month now
• New: now starfish, crabs, mussels,
clams are dying

Dec 27, 2016

• Large variety of species may make it less likely
to be an infectious disease
• ISA likely can be ruled out, and anything
herring-specific, too.

Dec 28, 2016

Halifax Examiner
“... gigantic fish kills...”

Dec 29, 2016

• Humpback Whale washes up on shore
• Residents want to know if its death is related
to the herring deaths

Dec 30, 2016

• Staff aboard a vessel gather samples
• Use an underwater camera to film and
photograph the ocean floor
• Could be an intrusion of very cold water very
rapidly
• Could be related to a rapid change in salinity
with storms moving through ?

• Scientists want to look at benthic invertebrates?
• If environmental they couldn’t get out of the way
• If inverts ok, then might look at separate causes
for herring vs shellfish spp.

Dec 30, 2016

• No recent reports from aquaculture operators?
in St Mary’s Bay regarding
• Fish escapes
• Accidental discharges of chemicals
• Aquatic animal health issues

• No reason to suspect municipal operations
such as wastewater treatment

• DFO staff estimate 15 – 20, 000 dead herring
on the beach at Savary Park in Plympton on
Dec 28
• Environment Canada now testing for pesticides

And so it’s over?
Jan 5, 2017

• Kill subsiding, but cause remains unclear
• Tests for toxins, infections, contaminants, and
other possible causes have come back
negative
• Testing is being wrapped up
– If you were a commercial fisherman would you be
happy about this?

And so it’s over?

• No human related cause
• Must be a natural event
• Ruled out small December earthquake
• Ruled out the Cape Sharp Tidal turbine that
began producing power on November 22 in
the Minas Passage about 150 km away

Tidal Energy Today (online news page)
Apr 6, 2017

• Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge has
dismissed the application filed by the local
fishermen group to review the decision by
Nova Scotia’s Environment Minister,
Margaret Miller, to approve the installation
of tidal turbines in the Bay of Fundy.

• Justice Heather Robertson dismissed BFIFA’s
bid to overturn Minister’s decision, stating: “It
appears to me that from the Environmental
Assessment approval of 2009, extraordinary
efforts have been made to evaluate risk. This is
the essence of the adaptive management
approach and Environmental Effects
Monitoring Program process.

Tidal Energy Today (online news page)
May 19, 2017

• The Bay of Fundy Inshore Fishermen’s
Association (BFIFA) has expressed concerns over
Cape Sharp Tidal’s proposal to temporarily
relocate its tidal turbine for testing in a different
area of the Bay of Fundy.
• Is the turbine still running?
• We may never know the true cause of the
die-off

Overview of the fishery

• Commercial • Largest component
• Harvest documented
Bait Fishery
• 1200 licences
• Harvest unreported
• Recreational
• First Nations: Food, Social,
and Ceremonial

Socio-economic importance

• Income for fishermen
• Fishermen must buy
• Boats
• Gas/oil
• Nets
• Clothing
• Tubs
• Fish processors / transport / markets
• Community support services

Canadian Landings Atlantic
Herring in 2013

• 126,102 tonnes
• $46.2 million
• A Big Deal!

TAC system

Total allowable catch (a qouta)

Commercial Fishery Breakdown
SW Nova Scotia / Bay of Fundy

• 80% mobile gear (active capture) = predetermined
– Purse seines
• 20% fixed gear (passive capture) = competitive
– Weir
– Gillnets
– Trap nets

Commercial - Active

• Active capture, mobile gear
– Each licence holder has a percentage share of TAC
– TAC can change, but % usually doesn't
– ITQ Individual Transferable Quota

Commercial - Passive

• Passive capture, fixed gear
– 20% of TAC
–Competitive
Fishing continues until quota is met,
then closed

Status of SWNS/BoF Stock

• A concern for a decade or more
• Lack of rebuilding the stock since 2001
– Stable at a low level ?
• Needs a harvest strategy that requires
caution

To Determine TAC

• Stock Assessment = use more than one
method

Stock Assessment - Acoustic

• Primary assessment method
• Biomass and age composition
• Pelagic stocks
• Find in areas of congregation (could miss some)

Stock Assessment – Fishermen Input

• If TAC met, consider CUE
• If TAC not met, ask why

Stock Assessment – Age Composition

• Broad age distribution desirable ? (dont want to many young/old fish)
• Lack of older fish may be indicative of
exploitation
• Estimate with acoustic
• Measure with landed catch “ground truthing”
for length at age data.

Pacific Region Herring "Rodeo"

• Roe – Japanese Market $
• Roe on kelp, adhesive eggs
• Other BC Herring Fisheries
• Fish oil
• Bait for crab traps
• personal use

Atlantic Cod Fishing

• Historic cod fishery attracted local and
international fleets for almost 5 centuries
• Stocks were considered inexhaustible
• John Cabot said you could lower buckets over
the side and fill them with cod (1497)

Moratorium imposed July 1992

40,000 people in Newfoundland out of work overnight

Important quotes

“Once one of the biggest fisheries in the world”
“The stock’s collapse was one of the worst
ecological disasters of our time”

Quote from postdoc researcher Brad Erisman
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
“The world’s most famous example
of fisheries data
masking an impending collapse”
“The Illusion of Plenty”

Fishing the aggregations

• What went wrong?

• efficient technology made it easier for fisherman to find and harvest

• fisheries data masking an impending collapse (tech)

• a lot of fish were caught in a with minimal effort even though populations were down

• peak catch in 1968 with 800,000 tonnes

Fish Aggregations

fish were heavily populated in small pockets

What went Wrong?

• Regulations protecting stocks did not evolve
as quickly as the worlds ability to harvest cod
• Officials consistently overestimated cod
stocks, and from there overestimated the
sustainable harvest levels

Before the moratorium

• Inshore fishery – small boats
• Offshore fishery – Grand Banks – large
international ships
• International = open access and freely
exploited – but reporting??? None

The Rules: 200 Mile Limit

• 3 nautical mile exclusion zone until 1970
• 12 mile limit imposed 1970
• 200 mile limit imposed in 1977
– Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)
• Before that foreign vessels could fish
anywhere they liked on the Grand Banks

EEZ

Exclusive economic zone

Left Vulnerable to Foreign Fleets

• Flemish Cap
• Nose
• Tail
• After 1977, Govt of Canada subsidizes
the domestic fleet to help with foreign
competition
• More boats
• Bigger ships
• Catch our fish before other countries do

Signs of trouble

• Inshore fishermen using methods not greatly
improved by technology say stocks are
disappearing
• Scientists back this up
• Offshore fishermen with advanced
technologies still have good catches, good CUE
• Elected officials say keep on fishing

• Multi-million dollar investments by private
companies, fish processors and harvesters,
right up to 1991 because there was promise of
stock recovery
Further Compounding Collapse and Fallout...
$

Collapse and Moratorium

• 40, 000 people out of work overnight
• Lost investments in plants, boats
• Costly relief package, income replacement
from govt.
• Anger, depression, alcoholism
• Family breakups
• emigration

Economic Diversification

• Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
• New emphasis on education
• Relocation of federal buildings, e.g RevCan
• Gov’t investment in Hybernia Oilfields
• Retrain fisherman for other species
– Boom in shrimp and snow crab stocks due to
reduction of predators

Current Management Measures
- Bycatch

• Gear modifications to limit bycatch of cod
• Implement maximum bycatch of cod in other
fisheries

Current Management Measures
- Restrictions

• Close areas to all fishing
• exclude trawling from some areas
• Gear restrictions that limit harvest of smaller
fish

Current Management Measures
- Observers and Science

• Increase at-sea observer coverage
• Mandatory dockside monitoring for virtually
all groundfish landings
• Continued investment in scientific research
programs

Directed fishery

= the species you are licenced to
fish

Bycatch

anything else (species,size, etc.)

Capelin =

Important forage species for cod