Journal
CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES
Volume -, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
CANADIAN SCIENCE PUBLISHING
DOI: 10.1139/cjfas-2022-0169
Keywords
Atlantic herring; bait fishery; fishery rebuilding; fishery closure; environmental modelling; precautionary principle
Categories
Funding
- Fisheries and Oceans Canada
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Atlantic herring in Atlantic Canada have declined due to a combination of environmental recruitment controls, predation, and fishing. We estimated the bait fishery withdrawals and found that the decline in herring population is likely driven by natural predation exacerbated by fishing. The closure of fisheries is a precautionary approach in response to the uncertainties and irreversibility of stock collapse.
Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) are economically and ecologically significant but have been in decline in Atlantic Canada due to an uncertain combination of environmental recruitment controls, predation, and fishing (commercial fishery and poorly documented bait removals). Fisheries and Oceans Canada partially closed Atlantic mackerel (Scomber scombrus) and herring fisheries in March 2022 amid controversy and disagreement. Here, we develop a conceptual model for natural and anthropogenic controls on herring abundance centered on the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence (sGSL) and evaluate the likely importance of each. We provide the first estimates of the magnitude of bait fishery withdrawals in the sGSL. The decline in sGSL herring is likely driven by natural predation exacerbated by fishing. Bait fishery removals were 182 tonnes in 2021, suggesting that previous estimates for removals of spring-spawning herring were similar to 30% too low. Fisheries closure is consistent with a precautionary approach given uncertainties and irreversibility of stock collapse. Ecosystemic models are needed but will be difficult to develop given the incomplete understanding of prey substitutability and net effect of interacting environmental processes.
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