A federal decision to increase herring quotas in B.C. is facing pushback from critics who say increased fishing could threaten the return of a species that forms the base of the marine food chain.
In 2022, Fisheries and Oceans Canada cut the Strait of Georgia’s herring-fishing quotas in half to 10 per cent from a previous 20 per cent of the adults that return to spawn — largely in the waters surrounding Qualicum, as well as Hornby Island and Denman Island.
The fishery is the last large herring catch left in B.C. after the previous collapse of herring fisheries off Haida Gwaii and closures off the west coast of Vancouver Island in 2005.
This year, the federal government boosted the Strait of Georgia catch to 14 per cent of returning adults up to a maximum of 12,787 tons.
In an email, DFO spokesperson Mo Qutob said that decision was based on a “precautionary approach” that estimated the herring population in the Strait of Georgia stock is in the “healthy zone.”
But according to Sydney Dixon, a marine specialist at the Victoria-based wildlife group Pacific Wild, DFO's baseline measurements go back to a time when herring had already been intensely fished for many years. She said this year's decision to boost the fisheries comes at an uncertain time for herring — leading First Nations like the W̱SÁNEĆ of Saanich to support a fishing moratorium so the species can bounce back.
Dixon said herring appear to be migrating north to evade hot temperatures brought on by climate change, and have even been seen spawning off Port Hardy in recent years. But scientists, including those with the federal government, still don’t fully understand what’s happening, she said.
“For herring, this is really uncharted times. We know these fish are very susceptible to climate change,” Dixon said. “We really don’t know what’s going on with this fish.”
'No scientific justification' for reduced catch, says industry head
Christina Burridge, executive director of the BC Seafood Alliance, said the idea that the herring fishery should be closed because the fish is moving north is unreasonable.
“There’s only one population of herring. It moves. It always has moved and it always will move, probably due to a range of things, including water temperature,” she said.
Burridge said the herring catch is an important niche fishery that generally kicks off the fish-processing year.
More than 50 gill net fishing boats are currently on the water catching herring, and another couple dozen seine boats are expected to join them soon, she said.
Together with processors, they’re among the roughly 1,000 people who make their living from the herring fishery, mostly on the Sunshine Coast, Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland.
Burridge said her industry group was pleased with the federal government’s decision to increase the quota for a fishery expected to generate about $30 million in exports this year.
“There was no scientific justification when it was cut to 10 per cent,” said Burridge.
Most of the herring catch targets female fish and their roe, nearly all of which is sold to Japan, where it’s seen as a delicacy. The remainder of the herring — the males and bodies of the females — are put into low-value products like pet food, fertilizer and aquaculture feed.
Herring used to spawn prodigiously up and down the B.C. coast, north into Alaska and south into Puget Sound in Washington state. But today, their annual return to the Salish Sea represents the last spot where B.C. boats can pull in a big catch of the species.
'Everything wants to eat you'
Dixon said targeting the fish’s roe is problematic because it removes future generations that could come back and spawn.
That’s especially true for the herring that spawn off Qualicum, Hornby and Denman, which according to her calculations, account for about 40 per cent of the province’s entire stock.
Dixon, who was interviewed from a sailboat off Wickaninnish Beach south of Tofino, recounted seeing the spectacle a few years ago.
“It’s incredible. The water lights up like a bright turquoise colour. That’s from the milt, the sperm of the males,” she said. “You see an absolute explosion of predators — sea birds, eagles gathering in the hundreds of thousands.”
The bounty feeds salmon, halibut, salmon, hake and rock fish. Next come seals and sea lions, which, in turn, become the target of prowling Bigg’s killer whales.
On the west coast of Vancouver Island — where herring populations are growing but still not fully recovered — the fish roe is even scooped up by grey whales as they forage the ocean floor.
“I always tell people you really don’t want to get reincarnated as a herring because everything wants to eat you,” she said.
Look across the water during herring spawning season, and you’ll also see the fish species supports a sprawling food chain that underpins a range of other businesses, like whale watching and salmon sport fishing.
The latest available government data show just under 6.2 metric tonnes of herring were landed in 2023, worth an estimated $5.1 million. By comparison, 14 million metric tonnes — more than double the catch — were pulled in a decade earlier.
“It’s been steadily decreasing over the last couple of decades,” said Dixon. “Why fish a fish at the base of the food chain for very little return?
“If herring disappear, we’re going to see other industries disappear, too.”
