Bay of Fundy herring quota cut to affect seiners, fish plants

A cutback in the herring quota for the seiners in the Bay of Fundy will have a significant effect on hundreds of fishermen and fish plant workers in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) announced on August 9 that the 2005 Total Allowable Catch (TAC) will be reduced from 83,000 tonnes in 2004 to 50,000 tonnes, or a 40% cutback.

The reduction in the TAC will have "a big effect" on the fishermen and herring plant workers says Donna Larkin, manager of Southwest Seiners in Pubnico, N.S. There are 16 seiners operating the Bay of Fundy, with seven of the vessels from New Brunswick.

Four of the seiners operate for Connors Bros. in Blacks Harbour, and Tony Hooper, director of fish procurement for Connors, says the cutback will make it challenging for the company to meet its sardine pack projection this year. However, the weir fishery is not affected by the reduction, and the weirs have been seeing good catches for the past month. Hooper is hopeful if the weir fishery continues strong, and the area is not hit by any hurricanes, that the weir catch will offset the cutback for the seiner fleet.

"I expect we will have to source some fish from outside the area," says Hooper, noting that the company has a global fish procurement team with access to fish in the U.S. and in Europe. Obtaining fish from other areas will be more expensive, though. The cutback could indirectly affect the Connors plant at Prospect Harbor, Maine, although the company mostly ships weir fish to that plant. "There are a lot of ifs in the fishing business," he notes.

Hooper says the decision was not a surprise to the industry. "We were aware of pressure from DFO from last spring." According to Larkin, the Regional Advisory Process (RAP) at the end of March was suggesting a TAC in the range of 25,000 to 40,000 tonnes. The industry then presented a proposal for 62,500 tonnes, or a 25% decrease, with catch limits in areas of concern, including the Long Island shore, Scott's Bay and Grand Manan. However, DFO went with the recommendation from the science advisors instead.

"The sad part is, we have two months left to find out how much to catch," says Larkin, since the fishing year began on October 15. Over half of the TAC has already been caught, and vessels had been fishing on a restricted market. "The plants have cut back to a half of what they were taking a day last year, trying to stretch the season out," she notes.

Hooper observes that the cutbacks have occurred in the past, and the company hopes it will be a short term drop in the TAC.

"I understand the position of the industry, and I am sympathetic to the impact this decision will have on harvesters and processors," stated Fisheries and Oceans Minister Geoff Regan. "DFO and the industry have a common goal: to sustain the stock which assures a viable industry. As with all fisheries, conservation of the resource is the major objective."

DFO made the decision following a recent assessment of the Southwest Nova Scotia/Bay of Fundy herring stock that confirmed a deterioration in the state of the resource. According to DFO, the 2005 quota supports a harvest strategy that allows the rapid population rebuilding of the stock and provides continued industry viability.

DFO and the fishing industry work together to monitor and evaluate information from the herring fishery on an on-going basis. Since 1995, the herring stock assessment and related research have been enhanced by a number of projects undertaken with the assistance of the fishing industry. The "survey, assess and fish" protocol will continue and is an important in-season management tool for monitoring progress with the ability to change management measures as required. DFO will also work with industry on several projects including tagging on German Bank to ascertain if previous acoustic surveys were "double-counting" and doing a retrospective analysis of previous acoustic data and a possible larval egg survey.