Scientists Level New Critiques of Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s Scientific Rigor

Twenty-five years ago, after the collapse of the Atlantic cod fishery, Jeffrey Hutchings, a preeminent fisheries scientist and professor at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, sounded the alarm that Canada’s federal fisheries department was allowing “nonscience influences” in critical decision-making. Writing at the time, he said, “There is a clear and immediate need for Canadians to examine very seriously the role of bureaucrats and politicians in the management of Canada’s natural resources.” Today, a new crop of researchers is once again imploring Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) to change its ways. At the core of their concerns is a number of systemic and structural ways in which DFO gathers, parses, and handles scientific information, and how that advice is passed on to decision-makers. >click to read< 09:20

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