HERRING FISHERY COLLAPSES ON CANADA’S PACIFIC COAST

by Locky MacLean

Iconic forage fish population succumbs to decades of overfishing and mismanagement by Federal Authorities

Seine Catches have dropped off on Canada’s West Coast, as 4 of 5 herring fishery areas are closed due to overfishing — Courtesy Rebecca Benjamin-Carey / CHI

VANCOUVER, BC — The Pacific Herring fishery on the west coast of North America has collapsed, joining the Atlantic Cod in the annals of Canadian fisheries mismanagement. Conservancy Hornby Island (CHI), a community-based organization that has been calling for a moratorium on the Strait of Georgia herring fishery for the past 5 years with the support of many First Nations and environmental organizations and the public, has declared the fishery defunct. The Northern Gulf Islands region, the epicenter and barometer of the commercial fishery, has failed to see a healthy return of herring to its critical spawning beaches this spring and the commercial fishing industry has struggled to reach 50% of a quota already cut in half by the Minister of Fisheries, Joyce Murray.

“Normally, Hornby and Denman Islands are the epicenter of the last remaining herring spawn. This year, it’s just been a catastrophe. What I do know for sure is that I haven’t seen this limited and short duration of spawn in my 20 years of looking out over Lambert Channel. It’s a sad story” statedGrant Scott, a retired commercial fisherman and chair of CHI, who now advocates for herring conservation from his home on Hornby…