Only a quarter of Canada’s fish populations can confidently be considered healthy, with worrying decreases in economically important crustaceans and ecologically essential forage fish.
Data is missing for more than a third of Canada’s fisheries. This makes it difficult to near impossible to accurately assess their health or determine how to sustainably manage them.
Government actions to support rebuilding have stalled. At the current rate, it will take 37 years before Canada has developed plans for rebuilding all critically depleted populations.
*per cent of maximum sustainable yield or equivalent proxy.
Assess how healthy fish populations are using the best available science
Redfish rebounding
"We can’t help heal the ocean unless we know what is happening there and how it affects us, making research key to unlocking the potential for abundant marine life.”
Determines how many fish are removed and if harvesters are obeying the rules
Missing mackerel data
"Fishers want to be able to trust what everyone else is putting down — that there’s a level playing field. There shouldn’t be any groundfish trawl trips without at least electronic monitoring on board.”
Planning and making decisions for the long-term health of the fishery
Continuing to overfish cod
"Keeping the northern cod quota at this unsustainably high level allows us to continue irresponsible fishing pressure on a population that is deep in the critical zone. We all want to see cod populations regrow. We need to be patient — you can’t fish your way out of this kind of biological debt.”