Thank you very much.
As he said, I will be providing a brief overview of status trends for Atlantic herring stocks, and I will also provide a little bit of an explanation on how status is defined in the department's precautionary approach framework.
The first thing is that it's important to keep in mind that Atlantic herring is a key forage species within the northwest Atlantic. It plays a very important role in the ecosystem and is a main prey species for a number of other fish species and for seals, whales and seabirds.
Atlantic herring are organized throughout the Canadian range in a series of somewhat discrete populations, and because of that, those populations are managed as discrete stocks. The organization of that management aligns with our four regions within the Atlantic zone: Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, the Gulf and the maritimes.
Atlantic herring that occur from basically the tip of Labrador down to the south coast of Newfoundland are organized as one stock managed out of the Newfoundland region. Herring found in the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence are managed in two separate units, 4S and 4R, out of our Quebec region. Herring in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence are managed out of our gulf region, and that includes herring off the Gaspé, the coast of New Brunswick, around PEI and the gulf coast of Nova Scotia. Finally, herring that are located from the tip of Cape Breton along the coast of Nova Scotia into the Bay of Fundy and the Gulf of Maine are managed as a single unit out of the maritimes region, of which I'm a member.
An important piece of context is that all stocks are assessed with the best available information. When sufficient information exists, herring stocks are managed through our precautionary approach framework.
Very briefly, herring are allocated into three zones within the framework that are defined by the state of the health of the stock: the healthy zone, the cautious zone and the critical zone. There is a fourth category; it's called "uncertain". Stocks are considered to be uncertain if they are missing at least one reference point from the precautionary approach. The reference points are just defined as the boundaries that separate those three regions.
If a stock is considered to be in the healthy zone, from a science perspective there is really no concern about the status of the stock, and it's likely that most of the fishery objectives are being met.
If a stock is in the cautious zone, there is some concern from a science perspective for the status of that stock, and science advice would recommend a progressive decrease in removals from that stock as you move the boundary from the healthy to the cautious zone. That's to avoid doing serious harm to the productivity of that stock.
Finally, if a stock is considered to be in the critical zone, then its status is that from a science perspective, there is serious harm being done to the productivity of that stock. It's likely that there are effects to the ecosystem and to associated species and a lost opportunity for fishing. This can occur for quite some time, at least until that stock is able to rebound out of the critical zone.
That's a very quick overview of the precautionary approach framework.
I will go through the stock status for the various stocks very briefly.
First, starting with the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence in area 4T, there are two stocks within that unit. There's a fall spawning stock and a spring spawning stock. You will see that it is fairly common for herring to have spring and fall spawners. The fall spawning stock is considered to be in the cautious zone, and the spring spawning stock in the critical zone. It has been in the critical zone for some time, I think since 2004.
Moving on to the maritimes region in the Nova Scotia Bay of Fundy area, the major stock is a southwest Nova Scotia Bay of Fundy stock. Almost all of the harvest comes from that stock. That stock is considered to have moved into the critical zone very recently, just last year. The other components—coastal Nova Scotia, offshore Scotian shelf and southwest New Brunswick—have a status of "uncertain".
We then move to the north shore of Quebec, the northern part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the Quebec side. There are again two spawning stocks, a fall spawning stock and a spring spawning stock. Both have an uncertain status, but we do have acoustic indices for those stocks, and recently there has been a decline both in that index and in some of the landings.
Moving on to the other side of the northern gulf—the west coast of Newfoundland, area 4R—again we have a fall spawning stock and a spring spawning stock. The fall spawning stock is considered to be in the healthy zone and the spring spawning stock in the critical zone.
Finally, moving to the east coast of Newfoundland up to the coast of Labrador, there are five stock components within this management unit, and their status is considered to be uncertain.
On the next slide we have shown a few plots from stocks that are considered to be in the critical zone. The take-home message from this slide is that there are common patterns for stocks that are currently within the critical zone, in that previously they may have had a high abundance or have been in the healthy zone and over time have decreased into the critical zone and down to very low levels of abundance.
Finally, on the last slide, you see that there are a few take-home messages and key points in regard to Atlantic herring.
The first one is that biomass has steadily decreased for most stocks—not all, but most.
Recruitment, which is the number of young fish coming into the population or fishery, is currently low or decreasing for most stocks, and it's expected to remain low in the near future.
Natural mortality, which includes predation, may have increased in recent years, but this is an area of active research within the department.
Finally, the growth of individual herring in recent years is low relative to what has been measured in history further back.
That's all I have.
Thank you.
