PORT SAUNDERS, N.L. – Patience is running thin for harvesters in Newfoundland waiting for the federal government to release the 2018 caplin management plan for the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
“How the hell can we survive when it’s the middle of caplin season with no management plan and no quota?” Boyd Lavers said in a release issued by the Federation of Independent Sea Harvesters of Newfoundland and Labrador (FISH-NL) on Wednesday, June 27.
Lavers is FISH-NL’s captain of the over 40-foot fleet and an inshore harvester from Port Saunders.
“The minister of Fisheries and Oceans is either punishing us or he’s trying to bankrupt us.”
The caplin quota in the Gulf (fishing zones 4RST) was set at 14,300 tonnes in 2017, the same level as the 2015/2016 total allowable catch, the release notes.
While a management plan still hasn’t been released for 2018, harvesters have been allowed to catch half of their quota in the meantime.
FISH-NL is recommending a rollover of last year’s quota.
According to the FISH-NL release, there were reports caplin was abundant in the Gulf of St. Lawrence this spring, and scientists with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) have said the fish rolled on unfamiliar shores throughout Atlantic Canada and Quebec.
“The caplin is thicker here than we’ve ever seen and it’s right on my doorstep and I can’t catch it,” said Lavers, who has alrady caught half his quota.
“People need to understand that caplin wait for no man. If I don’t catch my shrimp today I can go out next week and catch it. Caplin isn’t like that — they move and may not be here next week. Is Ottawa going to wait until caplin are gone and then announce the quota? What’s the good of that?”
DFO conducted its very first caplin survey recently in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Scientists reported seeing banks of fish, the FISH-NL release states, but have no baseline science with which to compare the data.
