BC Fishing

BC's seafood industry grows and/or harvests more than 80 different species of finfish, shellfish and marine plants. In 2001, farmed and wild salmon made up about 45 percent of the wholesale value of seafood products, followed by shellfish, groundfish and herring. In the same year the industry supported 11,200 jobs.

Several regulatory bodies manage the various activities of the seafood industry, the two major bodies being Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) and BC's Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries (MAFF). DFO manages several marine fisheries, including wild salmon (by seine, gillnet and troll), herring, halibut, rockfish (by hook and line and groundfish trawl), sablefish, urchin (red and green), clam, geoduck and horse clam, scallop and herring spawn on kelp.

Wholesale Value of BC Harvested Seafood Products for 2001
(Source: BC Stats)

Species	$Million	Percent
Wild Salmon	160	15.9
Farmed Salmon	292	28.9
Shellfish	213	21
Groundfish	177	17.5
Herring	119	11.8
Halibut	50	4.9
Total	1010	100

Historically, management of many of these fisheries moved from open-access, where there was no regulation determining who can fish and how much they can catch, to limited entry, where a certain number of licenses were issued and held by fishermen. Under limited entry, DFO most often managed total catch of a species by telling licensed fishermen when and where they can fish. This often lead to a large amount of competition during fisheries and encouraged fishermen to over-invest in their boats and other capital equipment to make the most of the time they are allowed to fish. Also, with increasing numbers of fishermen and technological advances like hydraulics and cold storage, the efficiency and scale of fishing operations placed greater strain on what often became a struggling and unsustainable resource.

More and more, these fisheries are moving towards a quota-based system, where each quota owner is given a portion of catch on an annual basis. Like boats and licenses, DFO has allowed quota in BC to be transferable through market trading, allowing fishermen to buy and sell the right to exploit the resource. Research is beginning to show that for some fisheries this is having a detrimental impact on smaller, resource-dependent communities, as licenses and quota are moving towards urban centres and corporations with the capital to invest in the industry. Due to their limited supply and high demand, the cost of fishing licenses and quota is high, creating an incentive for smaller operators to cash out and larger operations to concentrate their holdings.

Since the 1970s, BC also has also experienced a growing number of salmon aquaculture sites along its coastline. Originally, species native to the Pacific like Chinook and Coho were farmed, but very quickly salmon farmers found it advantageous to grow Atlantic salmon. Experience from salmon farm sites in Europe and on Canada’s east coast illustrated that Atlantic salmon are more sedentary and grow faster, which allowed BC operations to be more profitable. The occasional escape of this foreign species, as well as the pollution from farm sites themselves, has caused a great deal of debate within government and local communities. Within the last five years, mounting evidence is suggesting that, contrary to original assumptions, Atlantic salmon are able to spawn in BC, and through competition and predation are negatively impacting wild salmon stocks. The feed and use of chemicals has also been found to have negative health effects on consumers as well as neighbouring biota.

Fisheries also play an important role in the daily lives of coastal First Nations. Many products from the ocean are used during cultural ceremonies, for subsistence and for trade. Although many fisheries programs and judicial decisions illustrate that the federal government values the rights and heritage of native Canadians, as population and pressure increases in coastal areas, maintaining meaningful access to and ensuring the health of marine resources continues to be a major endeavour for many native bands.