The Spot Prawn Fishery: A Status Report - Earth Economics

The Spot Prawn Fishery: A Status Report
sels tend to operate with three to four crew members,
while smaller vessels may operate with
only one person.
Shrimp species that are targeted by the trawl
fishery include smooth pink or ocean shrimp (Pandalus
jordani), northern or spiky shrimp (Pandalus
borealis eous), flexed shrimp (Pandalus goniurus),
humpback shrimp (Pandalus hypsinotus), coonstripe
or dock shrimp (Pandalus danae), and sidestripe
shrimp (Pandalus dispar). Prawns are only
caught incidentally in the shrimp trawl fishery.
Bycatch of spot prawns in the shrimp trawl fishery
has remained steady in recent years. Reported incidental
landings have been approximately one tonne
(2,200 lbs.) per year.
The processing industry has grown rapidly in
Canada. Five or six years ago, there were only a
handful of players. In 1999, 16 companies were
estimated to have handled more than 20 tons of
spot prawn product, which translated into 90%
of the coast-wide landings (Wong, SeaPlus. Pers.
comm., June 2001). Buyers and processors are
also located in a number of coastal communities,
including Lund, Vancouver, Richmond, Campbell
River, and Port Hardy. Processors must be federally
registered with the Canadian Food Inspection
Agency to export processed product.
In 2000 and 2001, the commercial fishery
opened the first week in May. Before that, the
fishery had opened in the second or third week
of April. A later commencement date to protect
egg-bearing females has been under negotiation
for several years. Areas that exhibit low spawnerindex
values are closed as required. Closures are
implemented on an as-needed basis throughout
the season. All open areas are closed for the
remainder of the season when the number and
distribution of closures reach the point where the
fishing effort is concentrated in a small number
of areas and the spawner index is highly variable,
indicating that an area is being fished down.
Although increasingly early season closures have
come to typify the fishery, due to overcapitalization
and increased fishing efficiency, fishing-season
length did increase slightly in 2000, to 85 days.
pling, and indices are changed
accordingly.
Fisheries and Oceans developed
initial escapement targets based
on measurement and analysis of
spot prawn production in a single
area. The application of the fixed
escapement system coast-wide
assumes that all areas have equivalent
production characteristics.
There is a danger of overfishing if
data from more productive fishing
areas are extrapolated to less productive
areas. Fixed escapement
indices also assume that if a certain
number of females are left in
a given area, commercial production
is guaranteed. These measurements
do not adequately represent
the idiosyncrasies of the
spawner/ recruit relationship in
all areas.
In order to address these assumptions
and their potentially confounding
affects on the spawner
index system, Fisheries and Oceans
developed an Experimental Management
Area (EMA) program in
1985.“The objectives of this program
were to improve the quality
and efficiency of existing management
practices, develop new practices
for future use, and test the biological
consequences for resource
management decisions” (Boutillier
and Bond 1999a). Under this program
escapement indices are monitored,
independent pre- and postfishery
abundance surveys are carried
out, and commercial biological
sampling programs are verified. In
addition, experiments are carried
out to test effort standardization
and further develop the biological
understanding of the species.The
majority of this work has focused
on the south coast areas and Howe
Sound.
The fixed escapement management
system is still a long ways
from being a perfect system that
provides optimum production
from all areas of the coast. The
results do suggest that there is
room to be more conservative in
biological reference point [spawner
index] criteria for closing areas.
By allowing more spawners to
escape (up to a point) the prawn
population should increase, which
in turn would provide fishermen
with a greater surplus of recruits
to fish. In addition, a greater
spawner index would provide a
greater safety margin to take into
account the variation in recruitment
success caused by biotic and
abiotic episodes such as disease
and parasite outbreaks or unfavorable
environmental conditions.
The results also indicate that if the
index is too high, then there is a
chance of density depensatory
mechanisms [cannibalism, disease
outbreaks] affecting survival
(Boutillier and Bond 1999a).
The British Columbia spot prawn
fishery is one of the few nonsalmonid
(salmon and steelhead)
fisheries that is being managed
according to a fixed escapement
policy. While admittedly not yet a
perfect system, it is one that is constantly
being refined and appears
to be working. Managers point out
that healthy populations of prawns
and a healthy fishery have been
maintained in the face of large
increases in fishing effort and efficiency.
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