Sardine fishery once deemed dead but it is now being resurrected and once again providing jobs because tonnes of sardines are being netted from the waters off Vancouver Island. Mickey Flanagan, chief executive of Keltic Seafoods in Port Hardy, informed that there is a pretty solid interest in Pacific sardines. He added that workers at all four Port Hardy docks are busy with sardines, also called pilchards.
As B.C.’s coastal fisheries were rocked by the decline in salmon, communities have sought alternative species to help bolster their economies. It is said that the quota for Pacific sardines for this year is 12,491 tonnes, with half the allowed catch designated to First Nations for communal commercial fisheries, and the other half to individual commercial licences.
Fisheries and Oceans Canada in a recent stock status report said that overfishing plus unfavourable environmental conditions are blamed for the crash. It further adds that sardines species has since rebounded and was calculated at 800,000 tonnes in 2007, rivalling numbers of a century ago, according to the federal fisheries’ 2008-2009 integrated management plan. About 10 percent of that stock is expected to migrate into Canadian waters. As sardines started showing up in Canadian waters again, limited fisheries were introduced in 1996.
According to Fisheries and Oceans Canada it is anticipated that Pacific sardine stock size and production will be sufficient to support a moderate fishery in B.C. over the short and medium term. Dave Smith, executive director of the Coastal Community Network, told that the B.C. fishermen are starting to look more closely at sardine markets and the federal government is working on more long-term fishery plans for sardines.
