International Council for CM 2003/U:06 Exploration of the Sea The Scope and Effectiveness of Stock Recovery Plans in Fishery Management Recovering Canadian Atlantic Cod Stocks: The Shape of Things to Come?

• Main Authors: Jake C Rice, Peter A Shelton, Denis Rivard, Ghislain A Chouinard, Alain Fréchet
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Canada; atlantic cod
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.1075.2235; http://billhutten.s3.amazonaws.com/fw/docs/340.pdf

Abstract Between 1989 and 1993 science advisors in Canada recommended major quota reductions for many Atlantic cod stocks. Government response to the advice was initially slow and insufficient to arrest the stock declines. Declines became collapses and complete closures had to be implemented for a number of fish stocks between 1992-1994. At the time of closure, expectations were widespread that it might require as many as 3-4 years for stocks to recover to states capable of supporting substantial fisheries. Those supporting such expectations were helped by some conventionally structured forecasts, which used the past as a guide to the future and implied a rapid recovery for the stocks. Projections with much more pessimistic messages were also provided at that time, but optimistic messages were the basis for much of the planning. The social assistance, industry restructuring, and science augmentation programs were all designed or adapted to extend a maximum of five years. The expectations were that by that time coastal communities and the industry would have restructured to prosper with more modest harvesting of recovered stocks, and that science would have the answers for why the stocks had collapsed. The last decade has been very different from those expectations. After five years of moratoria, stock recoveries were highly variable. A few stocks did return quickly to historic levels, but these were ones where the declines had been modest at the time that moratoria were instituted. Stocks that had declined severely showed evidence of very weak improvement at best. However, when funding for social assistance programs was exhausted, fisheries were reopened. Although TACs were very small compared to historic harvests, the very modest stock gains during the moratoria were rapidly dissipated. Moreover, the social and community needs for fishing were still present and the restructuring and retraining funds had not resulted in reduced capacity and demand for fish. Therefore the reintroduction of moratoria in 2003 have ...