Stop herring fishery to save troubled orcas, environmental groups say
Randy Shore More from Randy Shore
Pacific herring are a source of food for dozens of coastal species. Ian McAllister/Pacific Wild / PNG
Industry watchers and scientists can't quite figure out their math
Environmental groups are calling for the immediate closure of the herring fishery in the Strait of Georgia, citing steep declines in the herring population between 2016 and 2019.
But industry watchers can't quite figure out their math.
Action is necessary to protect endangered chinook salmon populations and southern resident killer whales, said Ian McAllister, executive director of Pacific Wild. "Shutting the herring fishery down to let stocks recover should be the first course of action."
He argues that the baseline for abundance set by Fisheries and Oceans Canada was set after local stocks had been substantially depleted by a decades-long industrial-scale fishery. The Pacific herring fishery was shut down for several years, beginning in 1967, after populations collapsed due to overfishing.
In recent years, herring fisheries have been curtailed in Haida Gwaii and the west coast of Vancouver Island due to poor returns, and on the central coast at the request of the Heiltsuk First Nation.
Pacific Wild, Conservancy Hornby Island and other groups claim that herring in the strait have declined 60 per cent in the past four years, due to flawed forecasting and excessive harvesting.
The fishery quotas for 2019 were set based on an estimate of 122,000 tonnes of returning herring, but only 87,000 tonnes appeared, the groups said. As a result, the fishery took 25 per cent of the return rather than the 20-per-cent target set by Fisheries and Oceans.
Fisheries and Oceans confirmed that spawning biomass in the Strait of Georgia was "closer to the bottom half of the forecast range, resulting in a harvest rate of 25 per cent in 2019."
That is where agreement over the numbers stops.
To demonstrate the 60-per-cent decline in biomass, the environmental groups used a high estimate from 2016 rather than Fisheries and Oceans' actual stock assessment for that year, which has the effect of exaggerating the decline, according to the industry group Herring Conservation and Research Society.
"The model does show a declining trend since 2016, but it's 22 per cent, not 60," said spokesman Rob Morley, who recently retired from Canfisco. "It also shows that biomass doubled in the years before that, rising 100 per cent between 2010 and 2016."
Herring populations fluctuate year to year in unpredictable ways depending on environmental conditions and changes in predator populations. Salmon, seabirds, humpback whales, seals and sea lions all feed on herring.
"The 20-per-cent harvest has been sustainable over the last 40 years and (Georgia Strait) populations have been healthy, even though they fluctuate over that time period," said Morley. "The catch rate is less than half the amount recommended for sustainability by the Pew Charitable Trust's Lenfest Task Force on Forage Fish."
The connection between the local herring fishery, endangered and threatened chinook salmon, and our troubled southern resident killer whales may also be a reach.
"Everyone who is fighting a war is using the killer whales as their poster child, rightly or wrongly," said Andrew Trites, a marine mammal researcher at the University of B.C.
Southern residents rely on chinook salmon, which in turn feed on herring. But since the 1980s, the proportion of young second-year herring preferred by mature chinook has increased, he said. "So, if anything, conditions should be better for chinook to feed on herring."
Trites has real empathy for coastal residents who are convinced that something is awry.
"People who live close to the water see this incredible abundance of life, with so many seabirds coming in to feed on herring, you've got whales, seals and sea lions," he said. "Then you see the seiners and it feels like a piece that doesn't fit, so the perception is that they are being overfished."
But he notes that spawner biomass in the Strait of Georgia appears to be at its highest level since 1950.
Nonetheless, Trites suggested setting aside herring reserves to protect herring from accidental over-exploitation as a compromise that conservationists and Fisheries and Oceans could both embrace.
"The waters around Hornby Island are the only place where herring have always come back to spawn, so that could be our herring RRSP," he offered.
rshore@postmedia.com