Baker: New Fish Science Report Paints Dizzying Picture For Industry Future.
It might be one of the most important fish science reports in years, but it was released with so little fanfare, you could forgive even the most hardcore of fisheries observers for missing it.
The report was released online in late November and it’s called “Short-Term Stock Prospects for Cod, Crab and Shrimp in the Newfoundland and Labrador Region (Divisions 2J3KL).”
It basically looks at the effect of warming oceans and then sets the table for the next three to five years in the shrimp, crab and cod fisheries. For those of you doing the math, those species represent more than $600 million worth of annual economic activity in the province.
The report is significant for many reasons, the first of which is the fact that it doesn’t look at species independently — it brought all of DFO’s primary scientists (the ones that haven’t been cut by the current federal government anyways) together at one table. That rarely happens.
The report is also significant for the picture it paints. And the news for the fishing industry as a whole is not good.
