Tag Archives: northern shrimp quota

SEA-NL Calls on Federal Fisheries Minister to Reverse Decision to Limit Increase to 2021 Northern Shrimp Quota

“DFO went outside its own rule book to limit the increase to this year’s quota, which will translate into the loss of more than 2,000 tonnes of shrimp to the province’s inshore fleet,” says Ryan Cleary, interim Executive Director of SEA-NL, a new association to represent the province’s more than 3,000 independent owner-operators. Cleary wrote federal Fisheries and Oceans Minister Bernadette Jordan Tuesday regarding her recent decision to institute a year-over-year limit of 15% to this year’s northern shrimp quota off southern Labrador and northeastern Newfoundland. (A copy of the letter is attached.) >click to read< 11:10

Rural NL faces devastation in light of drastic cuts to northern shrimp quota

ST. JOHN’S – Yesterday evening, the federal government announced a 63 per cent cut to inshore northern shrimp quota in fishing area 6. The FFAW is calling on the federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to reconsider the radical nature of these cuts, and once again calls for the offshore to be removed from shrimp fishing area (SFA) 6. The total allowable catch for SFA 6 went from 48,196 tons in 2015 to 27,825 tons in 2016, to a dismal 10,400 tons announced for 2017. This amounts to a 78 per cent quota reduction over two years. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) slashed harvest rates from 20 per cent in 2016 to 10 per cent in 2017. These dramatic cuts to the harvest rate are not in line with the reduction in the northern shrimp biomass. The decline in northern shrimp is not due to overfishing, rather it is a result of an environmental shift in the ocean ecosystem. As groundfish stocks rebuild, it is inevitable that shellfish stocks in the area will continue to decline. Read the press release here 09:36

FISH-NL calls on Ottawa to reserve northern shrimp quota for inshore fleet in light of expected dramatic cuts

The Federation of Independent Sea Harvesters of Newfoundland and Labrador (FISH-NL) is calling for an immediate halt to the fishing of northern shrimp by factory-freezer offshore trawlers in waters off Newfoundland’s northeast coast and southern Labrador until stocks rebound. “Priority must be given to the inshore harvesters of Newfoundland and Labrador — the economic pillars of our rural communities adjacent to the northern shrimp resource,” says Ryan Cleary, President of FISH-NL. “The inshore fleet is totally reliant on SFA 6.” continue reading the press release here 08:46

Qikiqtaaluk Corp. may lose $2M as a result of cuts to shrimp quota in Nova Scotia

f-v-saputiQikiqtaaluk Corporation, which had one of its vessels damaged earlier this year from striking ice, is now concerned reductions to the Northern shrimp quota for offshore trawlers in Nova Scotia will hurt its bottom line even more. The quota reduction mainly affects companies in Nova Scotia. However, Qikiqtaaluk, the biggest fishing company in Nunavut, also fishes those waters during the winter months. “Having this other announcement is another blow,” said Harry Flaherty, president and CEO of Qikiqtaaluk Corporation. Qikiqtaaluk lost approximately $4 million when the F/V Saputi struck ice in February. It had to be shipped to Poland for repairs and the company also lost months of valuable fishing time, said Flaherty. Now, the Fisheries and Oceans Canada announcement on quote reductions means Qikiqtaaluk may lose an additional $2 million in shrimp stock, said Flaherty. Read the rest here 09:59

Last In First Out policy ‘descriminates against Nunavut,’ says Nunavut Senator Dennis Patterson

Northern_Pink_ShrimpNunavut Senator Dennis Patterson is standing up for his territory’s shrimping industry. On Friday Patterson called on federal fisheries and oceans minister Dominic LeBlanc to consider Nunavut’s position when reviewing changes to the Northern shrimp quotas. Northern shrimp stocks dropped dramatically in 2014 and 2015, so it’s expected the quotas are going to be cut. Under the federal government’s “last in first out” (LIFO) policy, Nunavut would bear the brunt of the cuts because the territory’s fishing companies are the newest to have been given licences. Other fishing companies in the Atlantic provinces were operational well before Nunavut was even established in 1999. Therefore, Patterson says, the LIFO policy favours those companies and “discriminates against Nunavut.” Read the rest here 09:18

LIFO – Nova Scotia fish companies fight to keep northern shrimp quota in Area 6

Nova Scotia fish companies that pioneered the offshore northern shrimp fishery are fighting to keep their share of quota as the Trudeau government faces its first major fisheries decision in Atlantic Canada — one that pits province against province. The question is, who gets to catch a plummeting northern shrimp stock off Newfoundland and Labrador? “We’re being used to fix a problem we didn’t create,” said Andrew Titus, captain of the Mersey Phoenix, a Nova Scotia-based factory-freezer shrimp trawler. “If they change those rules, that is a direct hit to us … they want to kick us out of an area where we have been fishing since 1978,” said Titus, an employee of Mersey Seafoods. The so-called last in, first out policy — known as LIFO in bureaucratic jargon — has been used to manage quota sharing for decades, including the northern shrimp fishery. It means the last entrants to a fishery are the first out when a quota is cut. Read the story here 09:39