Seafood Assessment

Seafood Assessment Northern Shrimp Pandalus borealis (fromWikipedia) Atlantic Canada September 2006 Bettina Saier1 and Susanna D. Fuller2 1Independent Consultant and 2 Dalhousie University Shrimp – Atlantic Canada August 2006 About SeaChoice ® and Seafood Assessments The SeaChoice® program evaluates the ecological sustainability of wild-caught and farmed seafood commonly found in the Canadian marketplace. SeaChoice® defines sustainable seafood as originating from sources, whether wild-caught or farmed, which can maintain or increase production in the long-term without jeopardizing the structure or function of affected ecosystems. SeaChoice® makes its science-based recommendations available to the public in the form of a pocket guide, Canada’s Seafood Guide, that can be downloaded from the Internet (www.seachoice.org) or obtained from the SeaChoice® program directly by emailing a request to us. The program’s goals are to raise awareness of important ocean conservation issues and empower Canadian seafood consumers and businesses to make choices for healthy oceans. Each sustainability recommendation on Canada’s Seafood Guide is supported by a Seafood Assessment by SeaChoice or a Seafood Report by Monterey Bay Aquarium; both groups use the same assessment criteria. Each assessment synthesizes and analyzes the most current ecological, fisheries and ecosystem science on a species, then evaluates this information against the program’s conservation ethic/sustainability criteria to arrive at a recommendation of “Best Choices”, “Concerns” or “Some Concern”. The detailed evaluation methodology is available on our website at www.seachoice.org. In producing Seafood Assessments, SeaChoice® seeks out research published in academic, peer-reviewed journals whenever possible. Other sources of information include government technical publications, fishery management plans and supporting documents, and scientific reviews of ecological sustainability. Information used to evaluate fisheries and aquaculture practices for assessments regularly comes from ecologists, fisheries and aquaculture scientists, members of industry and conservation organizations. Capture fisheries and aquaculture practices are highly dynamic; as the scientific information on each species changes, SeaChoice’s sustainability recommendations and the underlying Seafood Assessments will be updated to reflect these changes. Parties interested in capture fisheries, aquaculture practices and the sustainability of ocean ecosystems are welcome to use Seafood Assessments in any way they find useful, with acknowledgement. For more information about SeaChoice® and Seafood Assessments, please contact the SeaChoice® program via e-mail and telephone information available at www.seachoice.org SeaChoice® and Seafood Assessments are made possible through a grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. 2 Shrimp – Atlantic Canada August 2006 Executive Summary Northern shrimp (Pandalus borealis) are the primary coldwater shrimp resource in the North Atlantic. They are also found in the North Pacific, though some experts consider them to be a different subspecies. In the Northwest Atlantic, Northern shrimp are found from Davis Strait south to the Gulf of Maine. The Canadian Atlantic shrimp fishery takes place off the coast of Newfoundland northwards to Baffin Bay, and consists of an inshore and an offshore component. Inshore boats fishing in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, on the Scotian Shelf and off northwestern Newfoundland deliver fresh and frozen shrimp to shore plants for cooking and peeling. The offshore fishery is prosecuted by large factory ships capable of cooking and freezing shrimp within minutes of harvest. The landed value of Northern shrimps in Eastern Canada in 2005 was over $ 240 million, which makes it the third most valuable fishery in Atlantic Canada after lobster and snow crab. Northern shrimps are short lived, early-maturing fast growers that produce many young, and so are inherently resistant to fishing pressure. Abundance and biomass in the Atlantic Canada Northern shrimp fishery has been increasing since the 1990s, and catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) trends have remained stable or above the long-term average. Due to high biomass and low exploitation rates, all Northern shrimp stocks in eastern Canada are considered in good shape and overfishing does not occur at this time. The increase in shrimp biomass in the 1990s was related at least in part to the collapse of Atlantic cod, which had historically been a very abundant predator on Northern shrimps. The distribution of Northern shrimp overlaps with groundfish and other shellfish populations. Resulting from concerns about the level of bycatch of groundfish species by the small-meshed shrimp trawls and the effect on their populations, an exclusion device known as the Nordmore grate was introduced in the Canadian shrimp fishery in 1993. This device sorts out the larger fish, allowing them to escape through an opening in the top of the net, while allowing the smaller shrimp to pass through and be retained in the cod-end of the net. With extensive use of the grate in recent years, groundfish mortality in Canadian shrimp fisheries has been reduced markedly and bycatch has usually amounted to 1-2% of total landings by weight. However, even low bycatch of small redfish as well as endangered Atlantic cod continues to be a major conservation concern because cod abundance, for example, has shown violent fluctuations and rapid declines in the last two to three decades, mostly due to overfishing and today, many stocks are at historically low levels. On the Atlantic coast Canada, otter trawls are the primary gear used by fishermen targeting Northern shrimp. Numerous studies have documented and summarized the effects of mobile tending gear, such as bottom trawls, on seafloor habitats, and have consistently recognized bottom trawls, including otter trawls, as some of the most damaging gear types in use. Although Northern shrimp live primarily in sand and mud, habitats with a moderate to high resilience to disturbance, severe gear impacts remain the biggest concern of this fishery. 3 Shrimp – Atlantic Canada August 2006 The Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Canada manages the Northern shrimp fishery in 3 regions - Newfoundland/Labrador, the Gulf and Estuary of St. Lawrence, and the Eastern Scotian Shelf. Management measures in each region include some or all of the following: seasonal closures, vessel licensing, limited/closed entry, mandatory bycatch reduction devices, minimum mesh size, research surveys, observer and dockside monitoring, and Total Allowable Catch (TAC) limits. For the offshore fleet of factory freezer trawlers, the TACs are divided into Enterprise Allocations or individual company quotas. All vessels in the offshore fishery must also have independent observers onboard at all times. There remains some uncertainty in stock status. The Canadian shrimp fisheries are considered effectively managed and comprehensively monitored and enforced, with the exception of the lack of attention to habitat impacts. For a more comprehensive review of all cold water shrimp, see Coldwater (Northern) Shrimp Seafood Watch Report (available online: http://www.mbayaq.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/content/media/MBA_SeafoodWatch_ColdwaterShri mpReport.pdf). The criteria analyzed in the assessment for Northern shrimps, Pandalus borealis, from eastern Canada result in the following overall recommendation: SOME CONCERN. Table of Sustainability Ranks Conservation Concern Sustainability Low Moderate High Critical Criteria Inherent Vulnerability √ Status of Stocks √ Nature of Bycatch √ Habitat Effects √ Management √ Effectiveness Overall Seafood Recommendation: While shrimp are fast growing and resilient to fishing pressure (although there are signs that shrimp size is declining), and stocks are fairly healthy, the impacts of shrimp trawling on the sea floor have received little attention in Canadian waters. Efforts have been put in place to reduce bycatch, however there are reports of juvenile groundfish being caught in shrimp trawls. Additionally, cold water corals are impacted by shrimp trawling. Management has been moderately effective, in maintaining stock biomass. The overall recommendation for Northern shrimp is: “some concerns”. Northern Shrimp Best choice Some Concerns Avoid 4 Shrimp – Atlantic Canada August 2006 About the Overall Seafood Recommendation: • A seafood product is ranked Avoid if two or more criteria are of High Conservation Concern (red) OR if one or more criteria are of Critical Conservation Concern (black) in the table above. • A seafood product is ranked Some Concerns if the five criteria “average” to yellow (Moderate Conservation Concern) OR if the “Status of Stocks” and “Management Effectiveness” criteria are both of Moderate Conservation Concern. • A seafood product is ranked Best Choice if three or more criteria are of Low Conservation Concern (green) and the remaining criteria are not of High or Critical Conservation Concern. 5 Shrimp – Atlantic Canada August 2006 Introduction The Northern (or pink) shrimp, Pandalus borealis, is the most commercially important of more than 30 shrimp species found in the Canadian Northwest Atlantic. A closely related species, the striped pink shrimp, Pandalus montagui, at times occurs as a by-catch of varying proportions but, more recently, large concentrations of this species have been found at certain locations in the eastern Hudson Strait and Ungava Bay (DFO 2006). Biology Shrimp

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