By BOB WEBER
THE CANADIAN PRESS

Half the country’s chinook salmon populations are endangered and most of the rest are in decline, according to a science committee that monitors the health of wildlife populations.

The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife In Canada reported Monday that of Canada’s 16 chinook populations, eight are endangered, four are threatened and one is considered of special concern.

Only one, located in British Columbia’s Thompson River, is considered stable. The condition of two populations is unknown.

Endangered is the committee’s most serious ranking, suggesting the population is in danger of being wiped out.

“There are some where there is thought to be fewer than 200 fish still remaining,” said committee member and Simon Fraser University fisheries biologist John Neilson.

“At that level, there would be concern about those stocks. That’s why we’re sounding the alarm.”

Chinook salmon are both a major fishery in British Columbia and central to the lives and culture of Indigenous people. Neilson said the new assessment is the most comprehensive the committee has ever done on the fish.

“From other studies and general knowledge on the state of salmon in B.C., there’s a lot of concern,” Neilson said. “These are populations that are at the high end of needing some attention.”

Scientists believe the problem occurs during the part of their lives the salmon spend in the ocean.

Some believe growing numbers of seals and sea lions, which feed on the fish, are behind the declines. Others say the warming and acidifying ocean is starting to affect the food web the salmon depend on.

“It’s a complex story,” said Neilson.

It’s time the federal government use its power to protect the fish and its habitat, he added.
“Our suggestion is that government act quickly.”

The Species At Risk Act allows the federal government to issue emergency protection orders which allow Ottawa to control activity in critical habitat normally governed by the provinces.
The federal government has used the power twice before for the western chorus frog and the sage grouse.

Federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna said she hadn’t yet seen the assessment but would follow up on its concerns.

“We understand that it is critically important to protect and conserve our native wildlife. We need to fulfill our obligations under the Species At Risk Act.”

She said some measures have already been taken to protect and rebuild chinook salmon stocks.
The committee also released assessments of two other species.

It recommended no change be applied to polar bears, now considered to be a species of special concern.

It also looked at the black ash tree, a common urban tree in civic parks in Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa. It found that over the last 20 years, an invasive species called the emerald ash borer has killed about two billion ash trees in the Great Lakes Region.
​
The black ash is now considered threatened, the committee found.

By Staff The Canadian Press

Atlantic herring is a hearty source of protein for people and marine mammals alike, but like a startling number of Canada’s fish stocks, the plan to rebuild the depleted herring population is currently one big question mark.

That’s a conclusion reached by advocacy group Oceana Canada, which published its second annual fisheries audit Tuesday — a report card assessing the health of Canada’s fish stocks.

The report found Canada has a lot of work to do to reverse the decline of its fish stocks, and it needs to pick up the pace.

Oceana’s science director Robert Rangeley said he hopes the audit is a “wake-up call” for better fisheries management.

“My biggest fear is one of complacency,” said Rangeley. “We’re still hovering around one-third of our fish stocks (that) are healthy, which is very poor performance for the 194 stocks that are so important for coastal communities.”

Only 34 per cent of Canada’s fish stocks are considered healthy. Twenty-nine per cent are in a critical or cautious zone, and perhaps most alarmingly, 37 per cent of stocks don’t have sufficient data to assign a health status.

Some, like Pacific herring in Haida Gwaii, slipped into the critical red zone this year.

The numbers are indicative of the slow policy implementation that plagues management of Canada’s fisheries, Rangeley said. The Oceana team expected to see more stocks move from the uncertain zone into one of the other categories this year, but in fact, the needle barely moved.

On the legislative front, the House of Commons passed revisions in June that will strengthen the Fisheries Act, including direction on rebuilding depleted stocks. If it becomes law and is supported by strong regulations, this could signal a turning point in the health of Canada’s fisheries.

Rangeley said government transparency has improved in recent years, giving his team access to the audit’s necessary data. But scientific reporting and assessment of stocks is slow and incomplete. Scientific and planning documents are often published late, or not at all.

Slow scientific publication means some stocks haven’t been assessed in years – and with the impacts of climate change affecting the ocean at a swift pace, it means some of the health assessments are becoming too outdated to plan around how to help improve the stock.
Of the 26 stocks that are assessed as critically depleted, only three have rebuilding plans in place. And even when those plans are published, the report notes that they are often based on out-of-date scientific assessments.

Atlantic Canada’s fin fish are most heavily represented among the critical stocks.
Rangeley said invertebrates like lobster and crab are more likely in good health than at-risk fin fish like cod and herring. However, rebuilding plans to bring struggling stocks back to health are notoriously slow to appear.

Perhaps the most famous example is the infamous cod moratorium in 1992 that devastated Newfoundland’s fishing communities. Twenty-six years on, there’s no plan in place to rebuild the Northern cod stock.

It’s not just an issue for the depleted stocks, said Rangeley. He recommends that a sense of urgency is applied to stocks in the cautious zone as well as the critical zone, because the more depleted they get, the harder it is to rebuild.

“It’s just a biological reality,” Rangeley said. “Knock ’em down too far for too long, the effort takes so much longer and it’s such a lost opportunity for a valuable seafood industry to just let such a waste occur.”

Striking the balance between a healthy ocean ecosystem and an economically viable, renewable food industry for small communities is not impossible, and it’s been done before, said Rangeley.

To run the fisheries right, more vigilance is required, the report said.

Some form of catch monitoring is in place for more than half of Canada’s stocks but the methods often don’t give a complete assessment of the catch, leading to big data gaps. And 159 stocks don’t have fishing mortality estimates, making it nearly impossible to set sustainable limits on the industry.
​
The report recommends investing in science and management capacity, assessing stocks regularly and developing up-to-date, well-enforced rebuilding plans.
It also highlights the importance of timely reporting, and calls for a national ‘fishery monitoring policy’ that would compel all commercial fisheries to sufficiently keep track of yearly catches.

Good planning, Rangeley said, is essential to getting Canada’s fisheries back to a healthy, sustainable level for oceans and for people.
“You can sustainably harvest seafood indefinitely if you get it right, and we’re not,” he said.

iPolitics
By Holly Lake.

Oceana Canada has released its 2018 fishery audit, and it’s fair to say many of this country’s fish stocks are floundering.

This is the non-profit’s second annual report on the health of Canada’s fisheries, which also assessed efforts to maintain and rebuild them. It found that, in 2018, only about a third (34 per cent) of stocks can be considered healthy — slightly less than in 2017. The number of critical stocks remains the same at 13.4 per cent, while almost 16 per cent are in the “cautious” zone.

“They’re hovering on the brink of dropping down into that critical zone,” 
said Robert Rangeley, director of science at Oceana Canada.

Of Canada’s 26 critically endangered stocks — nearly all of which are in Atlantic Canada — only three have published rebuilding plans.

While there’s been some improvement, a lack of sufficient data means the status of 37 per cent of stocks remains uncertain. For 72 stocks, there wasn’t enough information to assign them a health status.

“We know the stocks in our fisheries aren’t doing well; there’s no question,” Rangeley said. “Unfortunately, it’s not a good news story.”

That said, it’s not all bad news. There’s been progress on investment that’s aiming to turn the tide.

“It’s pretty clear that DFO (Fisheries and Oceans Canada) has put in effort over the last few years,” he said. “They’ve made significant investments in science and in transparency. They’ve committed to departmental work plans, and that’s not only transparency, it’s accountability.”

For that transparency to be fully realized, science information must be made publicly available in a timely fashion. The Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat (CSAS) oversees the publication of information related to the management of fisheries and oceans, but, in 2017, fewer than 10 per cent of documents that should have been released following CSAS meetings were published on time.

The report found almost half of the documents were published late: on average, 137.3 days later than CSAS policy timelines call for. More than 40 per cent of expected documents have still not been published.

“How do we manage with that lack of information?” asked Rangeley.

As part of recommendations in the environment commissioner’s 2016 fisheries audit, DFO now creates and publishes annual work plans with priorities and timelines. While these chart a clear course, the department has not met the plans’ prescribed timelines. The report found that only 25 per cent of the work-plan deliverables were completed in the past year.

“We have an unprecedented commitment with these work plans. They’re good plans, so get on with them,” Rangeley said. “When they’re completed, we’ll have more rebuilding plans.”

Fisheries monitoring also remains a real concern, including determining just how many fish are being taken out of the ocean and how many are being caught as bycatch.

Bycatch are the unwanted fish and other marine creatures caught during commercial fishing for a different species.

“If you don’t know what’s there and you don’t know what you’re taking out, the science is pretty wobbly,” Rangeley said.

Keeping track can be done through at-sea or electronic monitoring, mandatory logbooks or dockside monitoring. It’s widely acknowledged that current monitoring tools are weak and inconsistent. A fishery-monitoring policy has been drafted by DFO to address these questions and is now in public consultation. He said “it’s desperately needed” and should clarify what’s coming out of the water.

The federal government has been paying a great deal of attention to the ocean recently, including using its chairing of the G7 to create a blueprint for healthy oceans. Rangeley said Oceana Canada welcomes that, but Canada is still not following some best practices, including legally mandating the creation of rebuilding plans for critical stocks.

But if a revamp of the Fisheries Act — which is now in the Senate — passes, it will set fisheries management in this country on a course correction. Provisions in the bill direct the minister of fisheries and oceans to manage fish stocks sustainably and to put rebuilding plans in place for depleted stocks.

[READ MORE: Fisheries Act overhaul clears House of Commons]

Although it’s clear from the data that stocks are underperforming, Rangeley said there’s no reason things have to stay that way — nor should they, given that fish are an important part of the ocean ecosystem. A healthy ocean is productive, and provides a renewable source of protein for the planet. Key to keeping the ocean healthy is getting the harvest levels right. To do that, rather than manage species in isolation, we should be lessening the stress on them from climate change and pollution.

In a statement, DFO said it welcomed the fishery audit and will be reviewing its recommendations.

The department pointed to several investments that are starting to strengthen ocean protections, including its Oceans Protection Plan, which includes dozens of projects to restore lost habitat, as well as the $197 million announced in Budget 2016 for ocean and freshwater science, which is enhancing DFO’s ability to make informed, evidence-based decisions to support the sustainable management of Canada’s fisheries.

“This funding has increased our capacity to do research, monitoring and carry out state-of-the-art stock assessments,” reads the statement.

Work continues on that front to complete and update Integrated Fisheries Management Plans by developing precautionary reference points and harvest-control rules. Plans are also underway to rebuild major fish stocks in the critical zone, as well as the monitoring policy Rangeley eagerly awaits.

“The department has committed to expedite work in these areas, and will continue to make public our work plans to complete this work,” the statement said.

On the legislative front, in addition to rebuilding depleted stocks, the department says Bill C-68 is intended to promote the restoration of degraded habitat.

Rangeley said the investments are welcome, but they need to continue, along with a sense of urgency.

“We think there’s a huge opportunity to have more diverse fisheries and more value from it.
“I know there’s better science and better management that can be done to get our critical stocks on the path of rebuilding; it’s been proven in other jurisdictions. We know how to do this, the federal government knows how to do this.”
​
Investing in the ocean is justifiable, he added. “It’s just so valuable to the health of the planet. As the country with the longest coastline in the world, we’ve got to look after our bit.”

iPolitics
By Charlie Pinkerton

Sustaining Canada’s waters dominates the list of responsibilities for the Trudeau government’s new Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard Jonathan Wilkinson.

The North Vancouver MP is also charged with driving innovation in Canada’s fishing and aquaculture economy and upgrading the Coast Guard fleet.

“With the world’s longest coastline, Canada must have a world-leading plan to protect it and marine species at risk,” says the minister’s new mandate letter.

The minster is directed to implement and develop the Oceans Protection Plan, advance Bill C-68 – the reform of the Fisheries Act, which aims to restore lost protections, to achieve the government’s goal of protecting 10 per cent of its marine and coastal areas by 2020, protect Canada’s fresh water, restore salmon stocks in the Fraser River, create a healthy future for Pacific salmon by  2019 the International Year of the Salmon and to formalize the moratorium on crude oil tanker traffic on British Columbia’s North Coast.

Trudeau asks Wilkinson to “include initiatives that create and sustain good middle class jobs, leverage new technologies, and ensure the long-term sustainability of Canada’s oceans economy.”

As for outfitting Canada’s Coast Guard, Wilkinson is asked to work with the Minister of Procurement to ensure Canada’s waters are safely navigable. The Coast Guard is to also maintain shipping routes, defend Canadian sovereignty and support exploration. Canada’s Coast Guard has several procurements underway in a range of different stages. The largest of these is a new $1.3 billion Polar Icebreaker, for which the government plans to award a contract in 2021. It will be built in Vancouver and will be Canada’s largest icebreaker and one of the most powerful in the world, according to the government’s plan.

Wilkinson was appointed to the position last month as part of the prime minister’s cabinet shuffle.
​
Dominic LeBlanc held the role before his move to Intergovernmental Affairs and Northern Development. LeBlanc’s move from the file came after the so-called ClamScam controversy, in which a lucrative surf clam licence was awarded to a company with ties to several Liberal MPs including LeBlanc himself. The department has cancelled the licence.

iPolitics
By Holly Lake

For the first time since the Fisheries Act was created in 1868, there are provisions within it that focus on the rebuilding of fish stocks. But as they’re currently worded, they fall short of what international experience has shown is required to actually help a stock rebuild.

Simply, they must mandate that the federal government respond, not just consider responding.
That was the word from Josh Laughren, executive director of Oceana Canada, at the House fisheries committee earlier today. He said the language contained in Bill C-68 will also have to go further if it’s going to fulfil Canada’s international agreements and ensure this country’s laws are commensurate with other nations. 

“C-68 only requires the minister to consider whether there are some unspecified measures to rebuild stocks that, in his or her opinion are in the critical zone when making management decisions,” he said. “Let’s pause on that: consider whether there is some measure in place, once the stocks are already at or below levels which the government’s own policies explicitly state that they are never to reach.”

Laughren said some say they shouldn’t worry about this, as requirements will be set out in regulations, but he said the Act ought to provide clear guidance to those responsible for drafting the regulations and to stakeholders and rights holders on the intent of those regulations.

“What constitutes a ‘rebuilding measure’? If there are not measures to rebuild stocks, what then? And rebuild to what? To Maximum Sustainable Yield? To the Upper Reference Point? Or just back to the edge of the critical zone? In what time frame?”

He cited examples from European Union, New Zealand and Japan, where the word “shall” features prominently in the language around managing stocks. In the United States, the national standards for fishery conservation and management read: “Conservation and management measures shall prevent overfishing while achieving, on a continuing basis, the optimum yield from each fishery for the United States fishing industry.”

Further: “Any fishery management plan, with respect to any fishery, shall … contain the conservation and management measures … necessary and appropriate … to prevent overfishing and rebuild overfished stocks.

“In each case, the intent of the legislation is clear,” Laughren said. “When stocks are in trouble, governments must respond – not consider responding.”

He said the need to rebuild fisheries has never been greater. Canada’s marine fish populations have declined by 55 per cent since 1970, and according to DFO’s most recently published numbers, there are only three rebuilding plans for the 21 stocks confirmed to be in the critical zone. 

That includes Northern cod, which despite the federal moratorium put in place in 1992 that devastated communities in Newfoundland, still has no rebuilding plan. DFO continues to allow directed fishing on the stock — and others — that fall within the critical zone.

“Nonetheless management decisions have continued to allow fishing levels to steadily increase on this fragile stock giving it the dubious privilege of being the largest groundfish fishery in Atlantic Canada, while under a moratorium,” Laughren said. 

DFO’s latest cod stock survey, which was announced in March, shows that the small improvement reported in recent years is already on the decline.

“It is our view that this historical lack of priority on rebuilding, despite policy commitments to implement rebuilding plans for depleted stocks, and to reducing fishing effort on stocks in the critical zone to as little as possible, is directly attributable to the lack of legislative guidance and legal duty,” he said. “This committee has the opportunity to fix that.”

In Europe, cod stocks were as collapsed as they are here. But unlike here, they’ve recovered in the North Sea in Norway and in the Barents Sea, Laughren noted.

The difference? A legal duty to act and create rebuilding plans work — and they can make a big impact, he said. Since the United States legally required the rebuilding of depleted fish stocks, 44 stocks have been classified as rebuilt since 2000, generating on average 50 per cent more revenue than when they were overfished. That’s why Oceana Canada is calling for a legal requirement to develop rebuilding plans when stocks have fallen into the critical zone to be included in the Fisheries Act, as well as targets and timelines for rebuilding.

“Countries that have this positive legal duty to act have healthier, more stable fisheries than those that do not. Surely, that’s what we all want,” he said.

Liberal MP Ken McDonald, who represents the riding of Avalon in Newfoundland, said talk of the moratorium hits hard when you’re from the province.

“The fishery is so important, economically and socially to some 500 communities in Newfoundland alone, what do you say to those people who depend on the bit of quota they do have to be a make or break year, cod being in the critical state that it is. Do we cut it off completely? How do you balance that with the community and the survival of the stock?”

Laughren said overfishing of stocks including cod has done far more to hurt communities than any conservation has.

“These are tough decisions. The idea of developing a proper plan and setting your goals in advance actually means you need to have that discussion. It’s a tough one, but have it before, not after you reach these thresholds.”

Right now, all involved are awaiting word from Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc on the fishery in the face of the 30 per cent stock decline.

“No one has any sense of where he’s going to go on it because there’s complete and utter discretion on it. There’s no plan to guide us,” he said. “Twenty-six years after the collapse and we still don’t have agreement on where we’re trying to go with the stock or at what levels we will start to allow fishing. Those are tough discussions and we ought to have them before we get to this stage.

Conservative MP Todd Doherty said over the years and with multiple Parliaments, the committee has heard promises from DFO of doing better and getting fish stocks beyond the critical level — and yet nothing ever changes.

“What is the issue we seem to have? Is it an institutional issue or strictly a management issue within DFO?”

Laughren said it’s gone on too long to be simply a management issue within the department.

“When you see the same thing happening over a generation or more, you start to look at fundamental drivers. It’s lack of guidance, it’s lack of a framework for making these decisions. And we’re all complicit,” he said.

“On stocks there are a lot of voices for them to be re-opened before they should be or for quotas to be set higher, to push the quota to the upper level of what the scientific advice is. Those voices come from outside the department too.”

That’s not to say there haven’t been success stories. He pointed to the bounce back of halibut.
​
“When you take the pressure off stocks and let them recover, in almost all cases, they do,” Laughren said. “Give them the time and let nature take its course.”