Tag Archives: canada
Alaskans poaching Canadian salmon top concern for federal fisheries minister
American fishing boats catching threatened Canadian salmon was flagged as a top concern for federal Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray before meeting with the U.S. ambassador to Canada in March. Over the past decade, and especially in 2021 — commercial fisheries in southeast Alaska have intercepted high numbers of Canadian salmon, particularly threatened sockeye stocks from the Nass, Skeena and Fraser rivers in B.C., the document said. The long-term rebuilding of threatened Pacific salmon stocks is a key objective for Canada, which is concerned about the potential impact a number of Alaskan fisheries are having on those stocks, the document said. >click to read< 10:47
First sighting of right whales in Canadian waters triggers partial fishing closure
The federal Fisheries Department says it has spotted endangered North Atlantic right whales in Canadian waters for the first time this year. The department says two whales were seen Sunday by a surveillance aircraft in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, northeast of the Îles-de-la-Madeleine. It says fishing in the area where the whales were spotted will be closed for 15 days started Thursday at 5 p.m., and a 15-day vessel slowdown will also be in effect. video, >click to read< 18:33
Here’s what happens to federal services if public servants strike on Wednesday
The union representing over 155,000 public servants says if a deal isn’t reached with the federal government by 9 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, it will launch a strike this Wednesday. The Public Service Alliance of Canada says that negotiations have not progressed enough in recent days to call off a strike and its members are frustrated. Here’s an updated list of what services may be affected, an example, Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Canadian Coast Guard. Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s conservation and protection program, health and safety−related fishery closures along with the Canadian Coast Guard’s search and rescue, environmental response and icebreaking services will still be running but may be operating at reduced administrative capacity. >click to read more< 18:49
Fisheries and Oceans Canada faces deluge of calls to improve ‘suspect’ science
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans is being flooded with calls for change after a parliamentary committee examined how the federal agency conducts, interprets and acts on its own science. The investigation ended with 49 recommendations to address concerns about how DFO science is presented to the fisheries minister and the public before important political decisions are made — particularly those involving B.C. salmon farms or commercial fisheries on either coast. Insufficient funding for critical research, not incorporating data from Indigenous people, fish harvesters or independent academics, and a lack of transparency about DFO’s scientific research and outcomes also surfaced as key issues in a recent report from the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans (FOPO). >click to read< 08:07
Price outlook diverges for Canada’s top 2 seafoods – Snow crab prices plunged by 60 % in 2022
Canada’s lobster industry is poised to claw its way out of a down year, say analysts, while unsold snow crab stuck in cold storage remains an anchor dragging on the bottom line. Snow crab sales sank and prices plunged 60 per cent in 2022, thanks in part to U.S. consumers who stayed away from luxury seafood as they were battered by inflation. Lobster also took a hit last year, with prices down 30 per cent. The value of Canadian live lobster exports dropped as well, but volumes actually ticked up slightly. Kelly Zhuang of World Link Food Distributors in Nova Scotia says 800 tonnes of live lobster is flown to China from Halifax and Moncton per week. And more charters are expected.>click to read< 13:55
Seafood industry urges ‘extreme caution’ on controlling seals to avoid consumer backlash
Canada’s seafood industry is urging Ottawa to use “extreme caution” when considering measures to control the growing seal population, warning they could jeopardize market access and acceptance of Canadian seafood. But according to Conservative fisheries critic Clifford Small, a member of parliament from Newfoundland and Labrador, those concerns are overblown. “It is immensely important that as the government considers potential steps moving forward, its actions do not disrupt either the market access or acceptance of Canadian fish and seafood products, both internationally and domestically,” said Paul Lansbergen, president of the Fisheries Council of Canada. Lansbergen said both the U.S. and the European Union have strict rules regarding the harming of marine mammals during fishing. >click to read< 14:50
‘The season where hope comes back:’ Praying for a good catch on Lake Erie
George Gibbons understands that saying a prayer over his fishing nets may not guarantee a good catch or keep him and his fellow commercial fishermen safe on Lake Erie’s choppy waters. But it can’t hurt, either. “We’re a superstitious lot,” said Gibbons, who has been a regular at the blessing of the nets ceremony at St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Port Dover since the early 1970s. The annual church service is dedicated to the fishing families of Port Dover, which was once a bustling freshwater port and still retains a small fleet of commercial tugs that will return to the water in March. >click to read< 13:37
In Cod’s Shadow, Redfish Rise
In the North Atlantic, the trajectory following fisheries collapse has not been forgiving. Even decades after overfishing drove seemingly inexhaustible species like Atlantic cod off a precipice, many populations—most notably, of Atlantic cod—have remained stubbornly low. But in Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence, an exception to the rule is emerging from the depths. Redfish, a deep-dwelling species found in the western Atlantic from Baffin Island to New Jersey, is an unlikely hero: a scarlet groundfish the length of a bulldog sporting a faintly outraged expression and a line of spines sharp enough to draw blood. More to the point: aside from readers of Dr. Seuss, who’s even heard of a redfish? >click to read< 10:10
Commission cuts halibut limits across Alaska, Canada
The International Pacific Halibut Commission adopted its annual catch limits for halibut in 2023 from California to the Bering Sea at its meeting Jan. 27. Coastwide, the total constant exploitation yield, a term for how many total halibut longer than 26 inches are removed from the population, regardless of reason, is just shy of 37 million pounds, a 10% drop from 41.2 million pounds last year. Every regulatory area received a cut except for 2A, which covers California, Oregon and Washington. Area 3A, which covers the central Gulf of Alaska, and area 4A, which covers the eastern Aleutians, saw the largest cuts at 17% each. Southeast Alaska only saw a 1% cut, while the western Gulf, western Aleutians and central Bering Sea each saw 6% cuts. The Canadian coast saw a 10.3% cut. >click to read< 11:50
Despite a pause on new regulations, U.S. and Canadian lobstermen see big challenges ahead
After a two-year hiatus, members of the U.S. and Canadian lobster fisheries met in Portland over the weekend to discuss challenges facing their industry. Top of mind is how the industry will prepare before new federal regulations designed to protect endangered right whales begin in six years. Fisheries in Maine had late last year expressed relief about the years-long delay in the rules change included in a federal spending bill, as it bought the industry more time to research and test new fishing techniques and other measures aimed at protecting North Atlantic right whales. >click to read< 09:10
U.S. announces reduced East Coast commercial mackerel quota for 2023
The United States will proceed with a commercial fishery of the depleted East Coast mackerel stock it shares with Canada in 2023. The U.S. quota was released this week, putting pressure on Canada which has yet to decide whether it will continue a total moratorium it imposed in 2022 to help rebuild the population. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. equivalent of the Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), announced on Tuesday a total allowable catch of 3,639 metric tonnes. It was 27 per cent cut from 2022 in recognition that the transboundary stock remains in trouble and is overfished. >click to read< 19:01
“We’re solid. We’re unified” – Inside Kodiak’s crab standoff
The nearly 6-million-pound quota was the highest in decades. And some people spent more than $100,000 to buy a permit to fish this year, said Kevin Abena, one of the leaders of the Kodiak Crab Alliance Cooperative. But fishermen’s hopes for a banner season are now in limbo, as the 130 boats in the Kodiak tanner crab fleet are on strike, holding out for higher prices from the seafood processors that typically buy, package and resell their catch. But processors and industry experts say the fishermen are fighting larger market forces that make it unlikely they’ll get much more than the $3.25 a pound that Kodiak-based plants have already offered, less than half than last year’s $8 a pound price. >click to read< 10:48
How new fishing technology could help save North Atlantic right whales
Captain Martin Noel and his crew have returned to the fishing grounds to retrieve their crab traps from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, about 140 kilometres off Shippagan, N.B. At the press of a button on Noel’s smartphone, an acoustic signal from a floating transducer pings an oxygen tank at the bottom of the ocean. That cues the tank to inflate a buoy, in turn, sending to the surface a line of traps from 300 feet below. Brimming with one of Canada’s most lucrative seafood catches, snow crab, these on-demand traps are pivotal to Canada’s plans to protect one of the world’s most critically endangered populations of large whales. >click to read< 10:06
Amid fishing deaths, calls rise for small boats to have stability checks
After the Caledonian capsized off Vancouver Island in 2015 with three lives lost, the Transportation Safety Board called for all small fishing vessels to undergo a stability assessment and adhere to standards ensuring stability information “is adequate and readily available to the crew.” However, seven years later, Transport Canada says on its website that enacting the regulation would be “functionally challenging and prohibitively expensive for the industry.” The department declined a request for an interview with a senior official to provide further explanation. It’s a stance the Transportation Safety Board describes on its website as “unsatisfactory,” while a lawyer for the mother of a deckhand who died when the scallop dragger Chief William Saulis flipped over off Nova Scotia on Dec. 15, 2020 argues the federal government needs to act. >click to read< 11:50 – Search Results for “Caledonian” – fisherynation.com – Search Results for “Chief William Saulis” – fisherynation.com
Canada, U.S. fail to reach agreement on quota for shared haddock stock in 2023
Canada and the United States have, for the first time, failed to agree on a shared quota for the transboundary haddock stock on the Georges Bank fishing grounds off southern Nova Scotia. The two countries have jointly managed the haddock fishery and two other straddling stocks, since 2000, but were unable to reach a consensus for the 2023 haddock quota. “While Canada and the U.S. tried to negotiate a shared haddock total allowable catch … our countries will be setting our own total allowable catch independently of the other,” The disagreement centred on the size of the quota cut. >click to read< 07:25
Transportation Safety Board calls for greater attention to safety in commercial fishing
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada is calling for greater attention to safety on commercial fishing vessels as the industry remains one of the most dangerous in the country. Over the last two decades, there has been an average of nearly a dozen deaths per year. The most recent was Christian Atwood, who went overboard from a lobster boat on Boxing Day off Cape Sable Island, N.S.. The TSB is investigating that case. Glenn Budden, senior marine investigator for the organization, said there have been some improvements over the past few years, such as subsidies to buy safety equipment, but he’d like to see more done. >click to read< 07:24
New study proposes to uncover where chinook salmon could be dying en route to Yukon
The state of Alaska is proposing new research to track dwindling chinook salmon numbers this spring, and it’s possible the study could eventually extend into the Yukon. This week, members of the bilateral Yukon River Panel met in Anchorage, Alaska, to brainstorm ways to help the salmon, which undertake one of the longest salmon migrations in the world. It’s during this migration, though, that tens of thousands of salmon seem to go missing every year. >click to read< 10:23
Fisheries minister pushes for joint Canada-U.S. management of depleted Atlantic mackerel stock
“We don’t support the fact that we had closures because the stock was in critical condition and the United States were fishing essentially that same stock,” Canada’s Fisheries and Oceans Minister Joyce Murray told a parliamentary committee Friday. Murray’s remarks are a more public stance on what has been a quiet effort by Canada to persuade the United States to jointly manage a species both countries say is in trouble. Murray said she expressed her concerns in a virtual meeting earlier on Dec. 2 with her U.S. counterpart, Richard Spinrad, who leads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA. “He wants to invoke the precautionary principle, which in my view, wasn’t happening adequately. We agreed that we share our approach to this and in two months there will be meetings between NOAA and DFO to discuss our assessments and build a better approach to rebuilding mackerel.” >click to read< 10:03
Canada, U.S., Mexico to vote on investigation into U.S. efforts to protect right whales
A complaint, filed under the new North American free trade agreement, will force Canada, the U.S., and Mexico to pass judgment on efforts by the United States to protect North Atlantic right whales. “We recommended an independent investigation. We are looking forward to hearing a response and the position from the governments,” Paolo Solano, legal director for the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, said in Halifax this week. The commission is mandated under the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) to investigate claims a country is failing to effectively enforce its environmental laws. Last year, an American environmental group, Oceana, filed a complaint against the United States about protections for the North Atlantic right whale. >click to read< 07:51
Canada’s efforts to rebuild depleted fish stocks are flopping, says ENGO Oceana
Major spending increases and policy changes by the federal government to protect and rebuild wild fish stocks in Canada have resulted in little improvement, according to the 2022 Fishery Audit released this week by environmental group Oceana Canada. In its sixth annual audit, Oceana says fewer than one third of wild marine fish stocks in Canada are considered healthy and most critically depleted stocks lack plans to rebuild them. The audit assessed 194 fish stocks in Canada. The audit says 72 per cent of DFO’s management documents do not formally consider climate change and that needs to change. >click to read< 12:33
Small Modular Reaction: Europe’s Wind & Solar Disaster Paves Way For New Nuclear Age
Europe’s energy disaster proves, beyond doubt, that wind and solar are an abject failure, leaving the way clear for nuclear power and any other power generation source that can dish it up, on demand. With numerous operators seeking or obtaining licences to build Small Modular Reactors, and numerous countries signing up to have them, SMRs are here to stay. Nuclear power is safe, affordable, reliable and the perfect antidote to arguments about human-generated carbon dioxide gas posing a threat to life on Earth – because it doesn’t generate any, while generating power on demand, irrespective of the weather, unlike inherently unreliable wind and solar. >click to read< 11:58
Poor boat maintenance led to fatal sinking of fishing vessel near Bamfield
Poor boat maintenance contributed to the sinking of a fishing vessel near Bamfield two years ago that killed two crew members, according to a Transportation Safety Board of Canada report released Tuesday. Two fishermen died and one was rescued on Aug. 11, 2020, after a commercial tuna fishing boat that left Cowichan Bay capsized off Washington state. In the early morning hours, the F/V Arctic Fox II reported taking on water. The master attempted to deal with the water and ordered the crew members to prepare to abandon the vessel. >click to read< 13:46
Canadian Lobster Industry Implements Elog JOBEL
Electronic logbooks (Elog) for fisheries are essential for the timely processing and analysis of capture declarations and the sustainable management of Canadian fisheries. Since 2018 in Québec, fishers using JOBEL have demonstrated their fishing activity is compliant with national and international requirements. In the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, fishers, harvesters and scientists now have the information required to evaluate the durability of the Québec lobster fishery. Lobster fishers and harvesters in the Gaspe area now provide the Marine Stewardship Council with accurate information impacting other species during the certification process for their spring fishery. >click to read< 09:41
Canada proposes 62 fish stocks for sustainability protection
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has proposed adding 62 stocks to a regulatory list that binds the minister to rebuild them if they become depleted. In April the first batch of 30 was added. On Oct. 19 the department released a second batch of 62 stocks for public consultation. Comments close Dec. 19. Most stocks in the second batch are considered healthy, but candidates also include three stocks in trouble: cod and herring off southern Nova Scotia and yellowtail flounder in the Gulf of St Lawrence. Speaking to an Oceana conference on restoring fish populations in Ottawa last week Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray pledged to work toward that goal. >click to read< 10:07
North Atlantic right whale’s decline slows, but population falls again
The decline of an endangered species of whale slowed last year, as it lost about 2% of its population, but scientists warn the animal still faces existential threats and is losing breeding females too fast. The North Atlantic right whale’s population was more than 480 in 2010 and fell by more than 25% over the following decade. The North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium, a group of scientists, government officials and industry members, said Monday that the population fell to an estimated 340 last year. That is a decline of eight animals from the previous year, when the population was initially thought to be even fewer. >click to read< Meanwhile in Canada, no right whale deaths have been reported in Canadian waters in three years. >click to read< 08:02
A fish that sparked a national obsession
Bacalhau (salt cod) is a deep part of Portugal’s culinary identity. But for a fish that is found only in the icy depths of the North Atlantic Ocean, far from Portugal’s shores, the country’s love affair with salt cod is a puzzling one. How exactly did it end up on Portuguese plates? The answer is wrapped up in more than 500 years of intriguing history. In the mid-1500s, during Portugal’s maritime explorations and hunt to find the coast of India, they stumbled across waters rich with cod around Canada and Greenland; a major discovery that kickstarted Portuguese cod fishing. But by the 16th Century, Portuguese fishermen were pushed out by the French and English. >click to read< 18:14
Letter: Right whale entanglements – the undocumented and unknown statistics
New satellite imagery first to identify North Atlantic right whale from space
New satellite imagery research led by the University of Ottawa is the first to identify a specific endangered Gulf of St. Lawrence North Atlantic right whale from space. Matus Hodul: “The North Atlantic right whale is critically endangered, with about 336 individual whales accounted for. Mortality comes from whales being hit by ships and becoming entangled in fishing gear, so being able to detect and monitor their location is important to conservation efforts. Knowing where the whales are at any given time enables fisheries to open or close to avoid the whales and enables ships to bypass them to prevent collisions.” >click to read< 07:46 ‘Individual North Atlantic right whales identified from space’ >click<
U.S. inflation is sinking Canadian lobster and snow crab prices – U.S. consumers giving up pricey seafood
The price of Canada’s two most valuable seafoods is crashing this year as consumers recoil from the impact of rising inflation. The price of snow crab has plummeted in 2022 between 60 and 65 per cent while lobster prices have fallen about 35 per cent. Demand that had built up during the pandemic for all types of frozen and fresh seafood powered the Nova Scotia industry to a record-breaking year in 2021 with revenues reaching $2.5 billion, led by the two shellfish. But high prices for frozen snow crab and frozen lobster, along with a modest increase in the price of live lobster last year, are melting in 2022. “And the reason is that consumers backed away from the high prices at the same time that they began to be buffeted by these other problems of high gasoline prices, inflation and concern about lack of economic support,” John Sackton said. >click to read< 09:48
Canada is doing its part to protect right whales
Since 2017, the Canadian lobster industry feels like it’s been trapped in a “South Park” episode. There has been a steady drumbeat eager to “Blame Canada” for the plight of North Atlantic right whales. Right whales were rarely observed in the Gulf of St. Lawrence until recently. All that changed in 2017 when a large number unexpectedly moved to the Gulf. Tragically, we lost 17 right whales: 12 in Canadian waters and five in the United States. Two of the 12 Canadian fatalities were found to be caused by crab gear entanglements. Our Maine peers have made huge strides and sacrifices in recent years to protect right whales. Canada has also been leading the way, with the most aggressive management measures in the world. >click to read< By Geoff Irvine and Nat Richard 15:55
