1. Home
  2. Policy Search
  3. THRIVING ORCAS, THRIVING COMMUNITITIES – PROTECTING CANADA’S SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC VALUES ASSOCIATED TO THE TIDAL RECREATIONAL FISHERY ON THE WEST COAST OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (2022)

THRIVING ORCAS, THRIVING COMMUNITITIES – PROTECTING CANADA’S SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC VALUES ASSOCIATED TO THE TIDAL RECREATIONAL FISHERY ON THE WEST COAST OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (2022)

2022
Agriculture & Fisheries

Canada’s public fishery sector contributes at least $8.3 billion annually to local economies. In British Columbia the tidal and freshwater public fisheries account for nearly half of all the fisheries revenues but harvest only 15% of halibut, 10% of salmon and even smaller proportions of other marine species.[1]. The recreational fishery on British Columbia’s west coast tidal waters has been subject to significant area closures to protect populations of iconic Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKW). BC’s many coastal communities have strong economic reliance upon the recreational fishery and tourism. These values are potentially threatened by fishery closures.

 

Background:

Populations of SRKW have historically fluctuated over the 60 years they have been systematically studied. The population during that period has never exceeded 98, it has fluctuated over time, and has been as low as 66. The current population is 74.

Southern and Northern Resident Killer Whales (NRKW) share the same diet which is almost exclusively salmon. Recent comparative population trends demonstrate significantly different trends:

  • NRKW – increased from 265 in 2011, to 281 in 2017 and has recently decreased to 205 in 2020
  • SRKW – decreased from 87 in 2011 to 74 in 2020

Vessel presence (physical & acoustic noise) has been cited as a significant factor, which impedes whales' ability to hunt using echolocation. SRKW are largely urban animals, exposed to much greater vessel disturbance than their NRKW cousins. Differential exposure to vessel disturbances may explain population performance results. Experts agree that the foundation of a good recovery strategy is to increase prey (salmon) abundance and SRKW accessibility to successfully forage to acquire salmon that are present using the following recovery strategies:

  1. Increase abundance of Chinook coast-wide by reducing removals by fisheries.
  2. Increase abundance of Chinook in specific areas and times by adjusting removals by fisheries.
  3. Increase accessibility of Chinook by decreasing acoustic and physical disturbances. [2]

The scientific technical workshop engaging international experts considered the efficacy of prey availability strategy options noted above, and determined that the most effective recovery strategy to improve availability of prey was to address physical and acoustic vessel disturbance to improve whales ability to forage successfully to acquire or access their prey. Fishery closures and reducing removals were judged against their scientific justifiability and determined to have unknown, low or medium benefit.

Early data collected from the Salish Sea Survival Project exploring hatchery release strategies shows improvement in the marine survival rates and distribution of hatchery coho and chinook salmon, as well as reducing competition in the early marine environment between hatchery and wild salmon.[3]

Recreational fisheries are most attractive to potential participants if there is both “opportunity” and “expectation” of catch. Without these, people who might become engaged in the fishery will simply not pay the economic cost to travel and participate in a fishery where their access or opportunity has been impacted by fishery closures or reductions in fishing opportunity or catch limits.

The associated economic impacts to small coastal communities to fishery closures or restrictions are significant. The attached table summarizes the historic growth in economic contribution associated with recreational sport fishing.[4]

  • Real GDP associated with sport fishing activities increased for a fifth straight year, rising 5.8% to $389.8 million in 2016.
  • Sport fishing was the largest industry in the fisheries and aquaculture sector, accounting for 39% of the sector’s total GDP, and employing 60% of the workers in this sector.
  • An estimated 9,000 people were employed by the sport fishing industry in 2016, slightly less (-1.1%) than in the previous year.
  • Wages and salaries earned by employees in the sport fishing industry rose 5.8% to $236.5 million in 2016.
  • Sport fishing revenues were estimated at $1.1 billion in 2016, up 6.7% over the 2015 value.

image-20230530222052-1

 

These are very significant inputs generating far reaching economic spin offs all along the value chain and across many communities. Those are particularly experienced in small coastal communities that are reliant upon tourism and support to the recreational fishery.

 

THE CHAMBER RECOMMENDS

That the Federal Government:

  1. Adopt a Mobile Avoidance Sanctuary approach to manage recreational fisheries, rather than static sanctuaries. And recommends:
    1. Vessel operators whom inadvertently find themselves within the Mobile Avoidance Sanctuary are required to turn off sounding devices and slowly exit the zone at under 7 knots speed
    2. Applies in all areas SRKW roam including those outside designated Critical Habitat Areas

  1. Ensure fixed sanctuaries, where implemented, be small scale and located in key forage areas that are scientifically established based on frequent SRKW use
  2. Remove recreational fin-fish closures implemented in 2018 within Critical Habitat Areas, except in areas established as fixed sanctuaries
  3. Ensures fishing closures to support SRKW prey accessibility, must be scientifically validated to achieve materially significant benefit to achieve SRKW recovery
  4. Invest significant long-term financial resources to dramatically increase hatchery production, release times and habitat improvement on chinook stocks that materially contribute to SKRW diet
  5. Invest in programs to make prey species that form the diet of chinook throughout their life cycle more abundant to help promote chinook rebuilding
  6. Consider the relative proportion of catch by commercial and recreational fisheries and remove restrictions on recreational fisheries where the relative catch is a small proportion of the population.

 

[1] https://sportfishing.bc.ca/a-vision-for-public-fisheries-in-british-columbia/

[2] Trites & Rosen 2018 – Availability of Prey For Southern Resident Killer Whales –

[3] Salish Sea Marine Survival Project https://marinesurvivalproject.com/research_activity/list/hatchery-wild-interactions/

[4] BC Stats report on BC’s Fisheries and Aquaculture Sectors (Nov 2018)