Canada: Newfoundland seafood sector says capelin closure call misguided

Newfoundland seafood sector says capelin closure call misguided. The Association of Seafood Producers (ASP) in Newfoundland, Canada, says the capelin fishery is supported by existing science, making calls for a closure of the commercial fishery hasty and misguided. DFO’s most recent stock assessment for capelin in 2J3KL indicates that the biomass index this year is near the long-term average — granted, at low levels — and likely to be similar to that of 2020, with the potential of a small increase. ASP says the fishery has taken place at lower levels, like 2010, and the stock rebounded from then. “That alone, we believe, supports a fishery. We are likely at the same level as last year according to DFO science and there is a 30+% chance, again, according to science, that we will be above it,” says Derek Butler, Executive Director of ASP. “Calls for a moratorium assumes removals from the fishery can have an impact on the resource trajectory, but that does not appear evident at ...