Nunavut gets 50 per cent of new DFO shrimp allocation

DWANE WILKIN
Nunatsiaq News

IQALUIT — Nunavut will get 50 per cent of northern shrimp harvested offshore in a special exploratory fishery announced by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) last week.

That means the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board will be able to allocate 1,750 metric tonnes of commercial shrimp quota in the Davis Strait this summer, worth about $5.6 million.

Baffin Fisheries Council spokesman Peter Keenainak welcomed the increase, but noted that Nunavut’s share of the shrimp fishery still amounts to a small fraction of the total quota.

By the time it is allocated to adjacent communities and fishing companies by the NWMB, no one organization will be able to earn enough to consider investing in a vessel, he said.

“If the whole 1,750 tonnes was allocated to one organization it might be considered almost feasible,” Keenainak said, “but again you probably need more quota.

“And even if the whole 1,750 tonnes is allocated to one organization, it is limiting fishing to this area only when there are six other [shrimp] fishing areas.”

Nunavut’s shrimp will likely have to be harvested under a royalty charter agreement with southern trawlers.

DFO has set the total allowable catch for shrimp taken from waters in the northern portion of Shrimp Fishing Area 2 at 3,500 metric tonnes.

This is in addition to the permanent quota of 5,250-tonnes already in place for the whole area.

Area 2 lies off the southern coast of Baffin Island, roughly between the latitudes of Resolution Island and Qikiqtarjuaq, and encompasses Cumberland Sound.

Currently, 17 license holders, most from southern Canada, hold the rights to most of the Davis Strait shrimp. But licensed shrimp vessels have not ventured far north into Area 2 to harvest their quota in many years, according to Barry Rashotte, director of resource managment with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

“It’s a matter of going back to where they used to fish to see if the shrimp are still there, I guess,” Rashotte said.

The exploratory fishery will be limited to waters in Area 2 above the 63rd parallel.

Canada’s northern shrimp fishery runs from the Arctic south to the east coast of Newfoundland, and is divided by DFO into seven Shrimp Fishing Areas. Last year’s total allowable catch of 84,108 metric tonnes was worth an estimated $250 million.

Shrimp quotas for the entire fishery have been increased this year to 96,540 metric tonnes, according to DFO’s three-year shrimp management plan introduced in 1997.

The expanded fishery in Area 2 will provide resource managers with better information about shrimp stocks, which could eventually lead to a permanent expansion of the total allowable catch, Rashotte said.

“It’s basically a commercial fishery. We call it exploratory because its considered a new area at this time.”

When the season ends, scientists will review the the catch rates and the number of males and females in the catch, then advise DFO late next winter whether to continue with the expanded quotas.

“They could come and say, ‘you know, it doesn’t look like there’s sustainable biomass in the area, so don’t do it again.’ But I doubt that’s going to happen,” Rashotte said.

The Inuit birthright development corporation, Qikiqtaaluk Corp., has one permanent northern shrimp license of its own in Area 2, and shares another with Inuit-owned Umiaq Fisheries of Nunavik.