Question Period Note: Pacific herring management approach

Pacific herring management approach

Our government is committed to evidence-based decision-making for the conservation of Canada’s marine resources, including Pacific herring stocks.

Its conservation will always be our primary objective.

Our fishery management procedures are precautionary, leaving the majority of adult herring and all juvenile herring in the water to support stock health and the role that herring play in the ecosystem.

We also recognize Indigenous fishing rights, and the economic benefits generated from Pacific herring that flow to harvesters and coastal communities. 

• Pacific herring are managed as five major stock areas along the coast: Haida Gwaii, Prince Rupert district, Central coast, Strait of Georgia, and West Coast of Vancouver Island. There are also four smaller stock areaswhere Spawn on Kelp fisheries can occur.
• The Pacific herring fishery is composed primarily of Food, Social and Ceremonial and commercial fisheries, in four categories: Roe Herring (egg sacs), Food & Bait (whole herring for commercial use or human consumption), Special Use (whole herring for personal bait use and zoological feed), and Spawn on Kelp (herring eggs on kelp).
• Commercial roe and spawn on kelp fisheries in 2021 occurred in March. The 2021 season was similar to recent years, with commercial openings in Prince Rupert district and Central Coast for spawn-on-kelp only, and in the Strait of Georgia for roe, food and bait, and special use. Haida Gwaii and the west coast of Vancouver Island remained closed to commercial fisheries to support stock rebuilding.
• Stock status for 2022 is forecasted to be similar to 2021 and planning processes to develop annual fishing plans began in early October.
• Coastwide quotas continue to be well below average levels since the beginning of the roe herring fishery in the early 1970s. The herring fisheries generated about $35-55 million in export value per year before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and allow fishermen and processing plants to remain open during the period of the year when very few other fisheries are active. There are over 1,500 commercial herring licences, with a high proportion of Indigenous participation as licence holders and harvesters.
• An e-petition by Conservancy Hornby Island seeks an end the Strait of Georgia roe herring fisheries, and has received over 173,000 online signatures since it was initiated in 2019. The petition makes the case to protect Pacific herring as the primary food source for Chinook salmon, which is the preferred prey for Southern Resident killer whales; and, disputes the economic benefits of the roe fishery, specifically harvesting the roe for export and rendering the remainder of the fish into other products.

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