CANADA’S MARINE FISHERIES: Status, Recovery Potential and Pathways to Success Julia K. Baum, PhD, University of Victoria Susanna D. Fuller, PhD, Ecology Action Centre PREPARED BY FOR OCEANA CANADA 2016 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1 4.2.4 Current status of Canadian stocks - DFO Precautionary Approach Framework 61 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 4 4.2.5 Current status of Canadian stocks – COSEWIC and DFO statuses 64 GLOSSARY AND ACRONYMS 5 4.2.6 Integrated Fisheries Management Plans 68 4.3 Summary of results 68 1. INTRODUCTION 7 5. WHAT IS PREVENTING FISHERIES RECOVERY? 70 2. WHY DOES CANADA NEED 5.1 The drivers of overfishing 70 HEALTHY FISHERIES? 9 5.1.1 Targeted fishing 70 2.1 The seafood industry 9 5.1.2 Bycatch and discards of target species, non-target 2.2 Seafood consumption 11 species and species at risk 70 2.3 Economic value of Canadian fisheries 11 5.1.3 Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing 73 2.3.1 Landed value 11 5.1.4 Gear impacts on bycatch species and habitat 74 2.3.2 Seafood exports and imports 13 5.1.5 Failure to consider marine fisheries in an ecosystem 2.4 Jobs and the economy 14 context 77 5.2 Conclusion 77 3. HOW WELL ARE CANADA’S FISHERIES 5.3 Recommendations 78 BEING MANAGED? 16 3.1 The legal and policy framework for fisheries management 16 6. WHAT IS THE RECOVERY POTENTIAL 3.1.1 National legal and policy framework for fisheries FOR CANADIAN FISHERIES? 79 management 16 6.1 Key elements for recovery 79 3.1.2 Canada’s international commitments to 6.2 Focal species for fisheries recovery in Canada 82 sustainable fisheries 25 6.2.1 Atlantic groundfish and skates 86 3.1.3 Gaps in Canada’s legal and policy framework for fisheries 6.2.2 Pacific groundfish 89 management 26 6.2.3 Forage fish 89 3.1.4 Recommendations to improve Canada’s legal and 6.2.4 Apex predators 90 policy framework and enable fisheries recovery 28 6.3 Challenges to achieving recovery 91 3.2 Additional mechanisms for fisheries science 6.3.1 Estimating MSY 91 and management 28 6.3.2 Shifting baselines 92 3.2.1 Co-management of fisheries 29 6.3.3 Climate change 92 3.2.2 Research partnerships and collaborations 29 6.4 The value of recovery 92 3.2.3 Market-based approaches in sustainable seafood 31 3.3 Transparency in Canadian fisheries science 7. CONCLUSION 94 and management 31 3.3.1 The lack of transparency 31 8. REFERENCES 95 3.3.2 Recommendations to improve transparency 34 APPENDIX A. CASE STUDIES OF RECOVERING 4. WHAT IS THE STATUS OF CANADA’S OR RECOVERED MARINE STOCKS 106 FISH STOCKS? 38 4.1 Methods 38 APPENDIX B. OVERVIEW OF CANADIAN 4.2 Results 41 STOCKS AND MAPS 123 4.2.1 Frequency of stock assessments 41 4.2.2 Stock assessment types and data availability 45 APPENDIX C. METADATA AND PLOTS FOR 4.2.3 Current status of Canadian stocks – RAM Legacy INDIVIDUAL STOCKS 144 Stock Assessment Database 54 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Canada’s marine fisheries are highly valuable, both Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) uses the Precautionary economically and culturally. Despite their significance, Approach Framework to classify populations into four Canada has a poor track record of effectively managing its zones – healthy, cautious, critical or unknown – based fisheries and preparing for the future. Although the collapse on their stock status relative to a set of reference points. of northern cod is a notorious example of Canada’s fisheries Marine fish that COSEWIC has assessed as being threatened mismanagement, this species is just one of many that have or endangered should immediately be considered in the been overexploited and experienced massive declines in critical zone in this framework, with associated management Canada. Forty exploited marine species are assessed as measures implemented as an urgent priority. endangered or threatened by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) and are being A suite of non-governmental mechanisms contributes to considered for listing under Canada’s Species at Risk Act. scientific advice and could be further leveraged to help inform Canada’s fisheries management decisions. These Despite extensive overfishing, the overall value of Canadian include: co-management agreements between fishing fisheries is at an all-time high, because high-value shellfish communities and entities and DFO; collaborative research fisheries dominate harvests, especially on the East Coast. networks; and market-based approaches. This prosperity belies a serious problem. Canada has maintained its fisheries prosperity through a process of serial We highlight a disturbing lack of transparency in Canadian depletion: by intensifying fishing pressure on new stocks fisheries science and management. Stock assessments after depleting the previous ones, rather than through sound are sometimes inaccessible or opaque, and management management and successful population rebuilding. decisions are often not publicly available. Moreover, management decision-making processes for marine Canada has a relatively strong national and international species have often been circumvented by stakeholders legal and policy framework to manage its fisheries, but it with competing interests who communicate directly with has typically failed to implement the instruments that are in the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans, and the Canadian Coast place to prevent overfishing and to ensure recovery where it Guard’s office or with regional fisheries directors. This is is needed. Until now, Canada’s Species at Risk Act has failed made possible largely as a result of the broad discretionary to protect marine species. In addition, although the Oceans powers of the Minister that are inherent in the Fisheries Act could be invoked to help recover depleted marine fish Act. DFO should make its data and management decisions populations, it is rarely used for this purpose. available and foster a new culture of transparency. Canada’s Fisheries Act needs to be updated to include In preparing this report on the current state of Canada’s modern management principles, such as precautionary and fisheries, we developed a list of 165 Canadian marine fish ecosystem-based fisheries management approaches. It and invertebrate stocks, including the most important should be amended to include legal requirements to prevent commercially harvested stocks and those designated as overfishing and to rebuild fish stocks within clearly defined being of conservation concern. Recent stock status data timelines and with pre-identified recovery targets. were available for 125 of these 165 populations. Of the 125 stocks examined, 82 are found on Canada’s Atlantic Canada’s Marine Fisheries: Status, Recovery Potential and Pathways to Success 1 coast (n=28 species total) and 43 are on Canada’s Pacific which presents a much more optimistic portrait regarding coast (n=18 species total). For 79 stocks, there is an the proportion of stocks reported as healthy (48 per cent) estimate of abundance. Accurate estimates of fishing and those with an unknown status (15 per cent). The opacity intensity are important for managing and recovering wild of ECCC’s methodology makes it impossible to discern populations, yet only one-quarter of the reviewed stocks the basis of these discrepancies: the report does not had an estimate of fishing mortality or exploitation rate. state which individual stocks it evaluated; nor is DFO’s Moreover, there are 22 stocks without any existing measure Fisheries Checklist, upon which the document is based, of abundance or relative abundance. publicly available. The infrequency with which assessments are conducted and Overfishing remains the primary reason why many the lack of research documents for some recent assessments of Canada’s commercially harvested marine fish and should be regarded as significant impediments to sound invertebrate stocks are depleted and in need of recovery. fisheries management and recovery in Canada. Scientific Successful fisheries recovery requires a suite of integrated capacity must be restored within DFO if the department is approaches, including science-based estimates of to meet the scientific and management requirements of the abundance, reference points, effort control, reduced broad suite of species under its mandate. fishing mortality and rebuilding plans with legally binding timelines and targets. As soon as overfishing is detected, Our analysis of 125 Canadian marine stocks reveals that fisheries managers must sufficiently reduce exploitation less than one-quarter (24 per cent) of Canada’s marine fish levels by setting and enforcing science-based catch and invertebrate stocks are currently considered healthy by limits. Precautionary harvest control rules also should be DFO: 15 stocks on the Atlantic coast and 13 on the Pacific established to ensure that there is adherence to science- coast. Also of concern are a full 45 per cent of Canadian based decision-making. stocks whose status is currently unknown. Climate change impacts will need to be considered Eighteen stocks in Canada are considered critical. On when developing recovery plans, and Canadian fisheries the West Coast, only three stocks are considered critical. management currently does not do an adequate job on this However, the status of all elasmobranchs and forage fish front. Biological characteristics such as species life history on this coast is unknown, making it impossible to determine and trophic level must also be taken into consideration. the true status of the fished community. In the Atlantic, 15 stocks are considered to be in a critical state. Recovery of overfished marine populations has been Unsurprisingly, these include five cod stocks. Three achieved for a variety of species and can occur relatively American plaice, one witch flounder, one white hake, quickly if fishing mortality is sufficiently reduced. Within four redfish stocks, and mackerel are considered to be in Canada, Atlantic halibut stands out as one of the few fish critical condition.