Saving Seafood

Salmon Frenzy in Western Arctic Reaches Historic High

December 18, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The salmon frenzy that started in the western Arctic earlier this year has gone on to reach a historic high.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada has been studying Arctic salmon populations since 2000, and collects samples every year as part of the Arctic Salmon Project. This year, 2,400 salmon were submitted to the department.

Last year, less than 100 salmon were collected from western Arctic waters.

Karen Dunmall, a biologist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, said they got more salmon from harvesters in the western Arctic and Nunavut this year than in the last 20 years combined.

She said they also found that salmon appeared earlier than normal.

Dunmall said years when they would see lots of salmon were once “exceptional,” but high counts are becoming more of a regular thing.

“So the highs are becoming more high and they’re becoming closer together,” said Dunmall. “This year was an exceptionally high high.”

Dunmall said they heard from people that there was more ice in the water last summer, compared to this year, when there was no ice.

“So the salmon are responding to environmental variability and change,” said Dunmall. “Generally, things are warming up, but there are lots of other cues that the salmon are responding to.”

Dunmall said people caught salmon everywhere in the western Arctic, from Sachs Harbour and Banks Island, to all the way up the Mackenzie River in Fort Smith.

Each community in the Beaufort Delta region offered grocery gift cards in exchange for up to 10 whole salmon samples, as well as an unlimited number of fish heads.

Fisheries and Oceans then evaluates the samples to gather more information about Arctic salmon — including why their numbers are booming in the first place.

‘Pretty Crazy’ Catch In Norman Wells

Norman Wells resident Kevin Kivi has only been fishing for about three years. Last year, he caught no salmon, so it was quite a shock for him catch nearly 100 salmon this summer.

“There was a period where I put my net in for just over a week… and in those eight days it was 73 salmon I caught,” said Kivi.

He said the size of his catch grew over the course of the season, until he was pulling in 17 fish every time. He said catching big schools of fish like that is unusual.

“It was pretty crazy, the amount that were coming,” he said.

Kivi said that usually he catches lots of whitefish, but this year, he only caught about four.

He tends to give a lot of his fish to elders and other community members in town, or keep them for his family.

However, he said he feels it’s important to help Fisheries and Oceans with their research “to find out why they are coming up here.”

Community Helps With Sampling 

The large number of samples meant that the Arctic Salmon Project had to rely on the help of community members to process the whole catch.

The territorial department of Environment and Natural Resources partnered with Mackenzie Mountain School in Norman Wells to help with monitoring.

Kevin Chan, a regional biologist with the department in the Sahtu, said kids at the school played a crucial role in collecting the samples.

The department taught them about the science behind the work of fisheries monitoring and management.

Chan said the students measured the heads, recorded data about where and when the salmon were caught, and collected muscle tissue and bones from the ear of the salmon.

Fisheries and Oceans will be continuing the salmon project next year, and hope harvesters continue to submit salmon samples and inform them if they see anything unusual.

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Canada Announces New Protections for Rare Right Whales

July 11, 2019 — The Canadian government is announcing new protections for endangered North Atlantic right whales following a string of deaths and entanglements involving the marine mammals.

Six of the whales have died in Canadian waters in the last several weeks, and necropsies show three of them appear to be due to vessel strikes. The Canadian government said three more whales have been found entangled in rope, and it’s unclear whether they will survive.

Cape Cod Bay is home to most of the species during part of the year.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

Canada Has a New Fisheries Act. How Does It Stack Up?

July 1, 2019 — Canada has the longest coastline in the world, yet it has long been a lax outlier in fisheries management. But with an overhaul of the federal Fisheries Act now complete, the sense among advocates and fisheries experts is that the tide is about to turn.

The passage of Bill C-68 on June 21 means that for the first time since the Fisheries Act was enacted in 1868, Fisheries and Oceans Canada is required to manage fish stocks sustainably and put rebuilding plans in place for those that are depleted.

Josh Laughren, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy organization Oceana Canada, says that in 20 years we may look back and see the new criteria around sustainable management and rebuilding stocks as a transformational change.

“We now have [legislation] that says the purpose of fisheries management is to keep stocks healthy and return them there if they’re not healthy,” Laughren says.

However, the United States is still ahead in terms of the government’s legal obligations, he says. The Magnuson-Stevens Act mandates annual reports to Congress about which stocks are overfished, how to determine if stocks are close to being overfished, and how overfishing will affect stocks.

“Then they have to outline what they will do about it,” Laughren says, noting that management plans must include clear targets and timelines, and a failure to meet them often lands the government in court.

“[The Magnuson-Stevens Act] is far more prescriptive than [Canada’s] Fisheries Act. And there’s evidence it works,” says Laughren. “The US has 45 rebuilt stocks since that law was put in place in 1976.”

In Canada, of 26 critically depleted stocks, only five have rebuilding plans. Further, only 34 percent of fish populations in Canada are healthy, and more than 13 percent are critically depleted.

Read the full story at Hakai Magazine

Canadian Farmed Salmon Will Face Additional Tests for Viruses

June 10, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Fisheries and Oceans Canada will test for two foreign strains of piscine orthoreovirus in young Atlantic salmon before they are transferred to ocean-based salmon farms after being told by the Federal Court to tighten its policy.

Salmon farms will also be required to test salmon in net-pen farms for jaundice and heart and skeletal muscle inflammation, which some scientists believe is associated with a native strain of piscine orthoreovirus, also known as PRV.

“These are two key measures that reflect precaution where there is some debate about the science,” said Fisheries Minister Jonathan Wilkinson.

The Icelandic strain of PRV was found in a Washington state hatchery last year, leading to the destruction of 800,000 smolts. The Norwegian strain has caused harm to farmed and wild Atlantic salmon in Norway, leading to significant production losses.

“We are going to require testing (in hatcheries) for both of those strains because we are concerned about them,” said Wilkinson.

Earlier this year, a federal scientific advisory panel found that the native strain of PRV is widely distributed in B.C.’s coastal waters, but poses a minimal threat to Fraser River sockeye. B.C. PRV is commonly found in farmed Atlantic salmon and wild Chinook salmon, but in laboratory testing its presence is not predictive of disease, they said.

Nonetheless, testing for heart and skeletal muscle inflammation and jaundice will address concerns raised by independent biologist Alexandra Morton that the native strain of PRV is affecting farmed salmon, Wilkinson said.

The Namgis First Nation went to court last year seeking an injunction to prevent salmon from being transferred to farms in their traditional territory without having been tested for PRV. Ecojustice – acting for Morton – sued the federal government for an order to test for the virus.

In February, the Federal Court gave Ottawa four months to come up with a testing regimen, ruling that failure to test for PRV did not comply with the precautionary principle.

“This is absolutely amazing and wonderful news,” said Morton.

“While I am waiting to see who will conduct the tests and what the protocol will be when they find the virus, I recognize this as a bold and important step that no other minister of Fisheries and Oceans has taken.”

These interim measures will be in place while the federal government seeks public input on a pair of policy proposals aimed at reducing the risks of salmon farming.

“Salmon farmers already test for several known pathogens and these new tests will become part of that process,” said B.C. Salmon Farmers Association spokesman Shawn Hall.

“It’s our understanding that the native strain of PRV is in the water naturally and that is it benign.”

Failing to test for B.C. PRV is a missed opportunity to fill in gaps in the science about that strain, said David Suzuki Foundation science adviser John Werring.

“It is heartening to hear that the minister for Fisheries and Oceans Canada acknowledges that there is a great deal of uncertainty concerning PRV and the potential impacts this virus may have on both wild and farmed fish,” Werring said.

The Fisheries Department has also struck three working groups comprised of government scientists, First Nations, environmental groups and the farm industry to provide input on permanent changes to the department’s risk-management policy, specifically the switch to area-based management of aquaculture, land-and oceanbased farm design and fish health.

Results of a study on new and emerging aquaculture technologies – including ocean-based closed-containment systems and land-based farms – are due later this month.

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission. 

Salmon studies: North Pacific project trawls for data, funding

May 24, 2019 — “I like to say to people that after 100 years of research, we know a lot about salmon. But what we need to know most, we mostly don’t know,” said fisheries scientist Richard Beamish following the first International Year of the Salmon expedition this year. “We can’t forecast how a changing ocean ecosystem is going to affect salmon.”

Beamish, who organized the expedition and is an emeritus scientist at Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo, British Columbia, is seeking $1.5 million from governments, the private sector and nonprofit organizations for a 2020 expansion. The program’s researchers would like to carry the program into 2021 to continue their work on North Pacific salmon stocks and climate change.

The 2019 expedition, which was a signature project of the program, kicked off in February with an international winter salmon study in the deepest regions of the Gulf of Alaska. The 2020 expedition would put two Russian trawlers on the water to expand the work of a pilot 25-day single-vessel survey that ran early this year in the Gulf of Alaska.

A bigger survey is in the works for 2021. It would involve five ships surveying the entire North Pacific Ocean. The cost of that project is estimated at $10 million.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Measures to protect North Atlantic right whales have been effective, official says

October 9, 2018 — Representatives of the fishing industry and Fisheries and Oceans Canada met in Moncton over the weekend to look at the impact protection measures were having on the North Atlantic right whale — and to help decide what should happen next year.

The 2018 fishing season has been controversial, with fishermen in the Acadian Peninsula protesting the new federal measures that were put in place to protect the North Atlantic right whale.

Some of those measures included closing several fisheries where whales were present in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, speed restrictions for boats and increased surveillance.

“I think it was huge this year, the collaboration. The fishermen were very good at monitoring the management measures,” said Serge Doucet, regional director of Fisheries and Oceans Canada for the Gulf of St. Lawrence, speaking in French.

Doucet noted that no North Atlantic right whales died in Canadian waters this year from entanglements or collisions with fishing boats.

And although there have been some interactions with whales this year, the department believes that measures to protect right whales have been effective so far.

“There were challenges, it was not easy for all fishermen,” he said. “But their commitment to protect whales is there.”

Read the full story at CBC News

North Atlantic right whale disentangled 1 week after being spotted

August 7, 2018 — It took an hour and a half to disentangle a 10-year-old North Atlantic right whale that was spotted more than a week ago wrapped in fishing gear.

It was spotted by the Grand Manan Whale and Seabird Research Station Sunday afternoon, and reported to Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), and the Campobello Whale Rescue Team, which ended up disentangling the whale.

Jerry Conway, who has been involved in whale disentanglement for four decades, said the team removed most of the gear from the whale.

“We can’t say that it was entirely disentangled, but we’re quite optimistic that it has been,” he said Monday morning.

Conway said it’s hard to know how far the whale had travelled from the area where it was originally spotted in last week.

“This whale had been entangled for five days … so it could have been anywhere.”

But according to Conway, the whale was spotted just off the coast of Grand Manan Island and it was not co-operative with the rescue team.

Read the full story at CBC

US wants proof Canada saves whales, but some scientists balk

May 1, 2018 — PORTLAND, Maine — A group of Democratic senators says the U.S. should audit the job Canada is doing to protect endangered whales, but the Canadian government and some U.S. scientists are reacting coolly to the idea.

The senators, led by Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, cite the dire status of North Atlantic right whales as a reason to put some pressure on Canada. The right whales number only about 450 and suffered through a year of 17 deaths in 2017, and 12 of the deaths were in Canada.

The senators said in an April 25 letter to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that the agency should conduct a review of Canada’s right whale conservation standards, and consider prohibitions on some Canadian seafood imports if they are too weak. The U.S. imported more than $3.3 billion worth of Canadian seafood in 2017.

“Determining as quickly as possible whether Canada’s fishermen are being held to the same level of accountability as those in America is a critical step for taking swift action to protect this treasured species,” Markey said.

Canada believes it’s making a lot of strides to protect the whales, and also wants to avoid negative effects on the countries’ trade relationship, said Lauren Sankey, a spokeswoman for Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

Read the full story at the Associated Press