By Barry Darby and Helen Forsey
The recent “good news” about the increased quota for Northern cod hides a sad reality of mismanagement by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) over these past many decades.
Once again, this year’s harvest plan makes essentially no mention of how the fish are to be caught.
In practice, this means that much of the cod harvest, including an increasing portion of the inshore allocations, will be caught by bottom draggers using otter trawls. Nothing could be worse for the stock or for the harvesters and coastal communities that fish it. Yet once again, DFO seems oblivious.
On any index of gear sustainability, otter trawls rank as the very worst of all available harvesting methods. These weighted nets towed across the ocean floor have severely damaging effects on the targeted cod stocks, as well as on other species and on the very environment in which they all live and thrive.
Here are a few facts:
Otter trawls are indiscriminate; they catch everything in their path, including young and old of the target species, leaving none to continue replenishing the stock. Bottom gillnets are also harmful as they target the largest and most prolific reproducers.
Bottom dragging results in large quantities of dead bycatch, including valuable non-target species, all of which by DFO rules must be discarded. Harvesters are obliged to simply toss overboard thousands of dollars worth of protein.
Otter trawling catches large amounts of dead fish at one time, causing further problems, including the fish cannot be bled properly, producing lower quality product and when landed, the catch produces a glut, which must be sold, causing supply to exceed demand and prices to drop.
Harvesting with otter trawls is economically inefficient. Capital and operating costs (fuel, insurance, amortization/interest, maintenance, etc…) for bottom draggers cost more in dollars per kilogram of catch than any other gear or vessel type. The largest vessels are in fact the least efficient.
Dragging with otter trawls is also environmentally unsustainable, as David Attenborough’s film Ocean makes brilliantly clear. Not only do the draggers consume large quantities of fossil fuels and damage the habitat that marine life depends on, but the carbon emissions churned up from seafloor sediment are on the same massive scale as those from global aviation.
Industrial-scale bottom dragging is highly inequitable in economic and social terms, providing less employment and lower overall revenues than community-based small-boat fishing. Moreover, much of the money spent on inputs, and the profits accrued, are “exported” elsewhere, without benefits locally.
Bottom dragging, combined with H&G (headed and gutted) freezing at sea, lowers the value of the catch and causes waste and economic loss as heads, tongues, cheeks, liver, roe etc… are discarded.
Science and history have already shown that it is possible to manage fisheries so as to prevent overfishing and optimize economic and social benefits. This can be done with policies and regulations that ensure that all fishing is done selectively, with sustainable gear. This means that bottom dragging with otter trawls must be drastically curtailed.
Yet our Department of Fisheries and Oceans continues today to ignore the facts and permit otter trawling to again ravage our priceless Northern cod. The decimation of the formerly healthy 3Ps cod stock over the past twenty odd years is due in no small part to the continued use of otter trawling to harvest that dwindling biomass.
It’s been said that “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.” Or should that be incompetence? Or criminal negligence?
It’s time to hold DFO to account.
Barry Darby is a retired fisherman and educator from Burin, N.L., who has done extensive research on the economics and sustainability of the fish harvesting sector. Helen Forsey is a writer and activist based in St. John’s, with a background in rural organizing and public policy.
