Yesterday, one Pacific herring fishery closed and soon another will begin. Between November and early April, herring in British Columbia’s Salish Sea get little respite. This year Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) have taken a massive step backward in their management plan and increased quota for this season by 4,729 tons – an amount that is higher than last year for all fisheries combined – putting even more pressure on this foundational species.
Sydney Dixon from Pacific Wild has some great articles (as always) below regarding the state of the herring fishery in British Columbia. Well worth your time to read.
Hammered From All Sides
Yesterday, one Pacific herring fishery closed and soon another will begin. Between November and early April, herring in British Columbia’s Salish Sea get little respite. This year Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) have taken a massive step backward in their management plan and increased quota for this season by 4,729 tons – an amount that is higher than last year for all fisheries combined – putting even more pressure on this foundational species.
This season’s Food and Bait Fishery for Pacific herring in the Strait of Georgia opened on November 29, 2024, and closed February 12, 2025. With a quota of 2,100 short tons, this harvest removes an essential food source from the ecosystem at a scale difficult to ignore. Fishers caught just under quota at 2,017 tons between Northumberland Channel and Qualicum Beach. To put it into perspective, this year’s quota for the herring Food and Bait fishery is equivalent to 700 African elephants, 350 killer whales, or 1,400 Honda Civics in weight.
Public attention is usually focused on the herring roe fishery that typically opens in early spring and harvests herring to extract their eggs as they gather to spawn, but there are other, less publicized herring fisheries taking place each winter in the Strait of Georgia before the start of the spawn. These pre-spawn fisheries, which often cast their nets under cover of darkness and use light to attract the fish to the surface, are the Food and Bait and Special Use fisheries.
The Food and Bait and Special Use fisheries typically target herring in the fall and winter before the fish spawn, capturing both resident herring and migratory populations as they travel to the coast. The herring caught during this period is used as bait in other fisheries and feed for aquariums, and for human consumption. It is also converted to fishmeal or fish oil for livestock, aquaculture feed, pet food and fertilizer.
While the Food and Bait quota is staggering in itself, the overall quota for all commercial herring fisheries in the Strait of Georgia this year is set at 11,600 metric tonnes. The herring roe fishery, which is the largest, operates under a transferable quota system, allowing fishers to trade quotas between the roe, and the Food and Bait fisheries.
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