Dogfish catch faces UN quota
Proposed listing as species in danger would restrict B.C. haul to 15,000 tonnes
Larry Pynn
Vancouver Sun
Thursday, March 15, 2007
A diminutive shark that is despised at home and relished abroad as the fish with British chips is about to swim into the international political spotlight.
Long the scourge of sport and commercial fishermen in B.C.'s temperate coastal marine waters, the spiny dogfish is proposed for listing under the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species due to declining stocks in areas such as Europe.
The listing would cast a global net, ensnaring a commercial dogfish fishery with a total allowable catch of 15,000 tonnes on Canada's West Coast and 2,500 tonnes on the East Coast.
A second listing would apply to the porbeagle shark, also found on the East Coast. The federal Conservative government has rejected a recommendation of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada to declare the shark an endangered species and instead allows an annual harvest of 185 tonnes.
Canada will release a formal position on the proposed CITES listings -- the first to significantly apply to commercial fisheries in this country -- after consulting with stakeholders in later April.
"We manage all three of these fisheries based on the best scientific advice we have," Andrew McMaster, international fisheries adviser with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, said in an interview from Ottawa on Wednesday. "The view is the current fishing for these species is sustainable."
McMaster said that if the CITES listing is approved, Canada has 18 months to produce a scientific report showing its commercial fisheries are not detrimental to the plight of the two species. If the report is accepted, Canada could continue to export the species but only strictly under permit.
McMaster added the listing would impose "an additional administrative burden" on the export process.
Germany is proposing the dogfish and porbeagle listings at the CITES meeting in the Netherlands June 3 to 15, on behalf of the European Union.
The dogfish can exceed one metre in length, whereas the porbeagle can exceed three metres.
Among those in support of the listing is Ernie Cooper, a former federal wildlife inspector and now a wildlife trafficking expert in Vancouver with the World Wildlife Fund and International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
"It doesn't end trade, but ensures a sustainable trade," he emphasized, adding "no species once listed by CITES has ever gone extinct."
Dan Edwards of Ucluelet is among 15 to 20 full-time commercial dogfish fishermen in B.C., using hook-and-line methods on the west coast of Vancouver Island and the Central Coast. Trawlers also haul in dogfish as bycatch.
Edwards doesn't know the full implications of a CITES listing but fears it might further discourage consumers from buying dogfish. Greenpeace already has a public campaign in Europe against the consumption of shark, including dogfish, he said, due to declining stocks, with some retail stores falling in line.
Edwards said the B.C. dogfish fishery reached its peak in the 1940s for the harvest of vitamin A, declined in the 1950s, and had a small resurgence in the 1980s.
Dogfish are sometimes marketed as rock salmon and sold in Europe for British fish and chips and in Germany as smoked belly flaps. Tail and fins go to the Asian market for shark fin soup.
That's a long way from B.C.'s traditional view of dogfish. West Coast fishermen have tended to simply kill dogfish and dump them overboard as a nuisance fish and another predator of salmon stocks.
"People's attitudes are changing all the time," confirms Edwards, even as he admits to having never tasted one.
"It used to be considered a junk fish."
Dogfish fetch about 35 cents a pound and are processed mainly at Bella Coola Fisheries Ltd. in Delta.
Don't expect to find any locally with your chips. "No one has pushed the market because we have so many other options," said Bella Coola plant manger Dennis Noda. "We're spoiled with halibut and cod."
lpynn@png.canwest.comYou can now listen to every Vancouver Sun story on our new digital edition.
Free to full-week print subscribers or sign up for a 7-day free trial.
www.vancouversun.com/digital.
SMALL SHARK, BIG CONSERVATION CONCERN
Author
Topic: SMALL SHARK, BIG CONSERVATION CONCERN (Read 2130 times)