CHI REPORTS
The State of Strait of Georgia Herring
and Why There Should Be No Herring Fishery in 2020
By Cath Gray and Grant Scott for Conservancy Hornby Island
Summary:
Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) has again recommended a 20% harvest rate in the 2019-20 herring fishery in the Strait of Georgia (SOG). Because of the uncertainties in biomass projections, the 60% decline in SOG biomass in the past 4 years, the importance of herring to the overall SoG marine ecosystem, the serious lack of scientific knowledge on the different stocks that make up the overall SoG herring biomass, the fact that the SoG herring are the last of the supposedly healthy stocks on the BC coast, and the requirements of the new Fisheries Act, UNDRIP, and DFO's principles of Sustainable Fisheries Framework, Precautionary Approach, Ecosystem Based Management and risk aversion, we urge DFO to place a moratorium on or seriously reduce the commercial herring fisheries in the SOG for the 2019-20 fishery.