Is this fish really disappearing from the Georgia Strait?

WSÁNEĆ Hereditary Chiefs and conservation groups have been raising the alarm about herring in the Georgia Strait. Last November, the chiefs called for a moratorium on commercial harvest in the area, reporting community members are not seeing herring spawn as they used to, and they fear the population will collapse. The Georgia Strait is the last commercial herring fishery not under a moratorium in the province.

But Fisheries and Oceans Canada did not implement a moratorium, and instead went ahead in increasing the allowable harvest, from 10 per cent of the estimated total biomass in 2024 to 14 per cent this year. The federal department, also known as DFO, maintained herring in the Strait are healthy in a statement provided to The Narwhal. Commercial fisheries maintain the herring are simply moving, and are not in decline.

The chiefs hosted a herring forum in February on their territory, inviting First Nations, scientists, politicians, government officials and conservationists to share research and brainstorm solutions to the decline they have observed in their waters. Fisheries and Oceans Canada was invited and did not attend.

It may not be surprising that different parties have varying opinions on how an animal should be harvested — but how can First Nations and the feds so drastically disagree on how herring are doing?

Fisheries and Oceans Canada says herring are healthy but moving north

In a statement, Fisheries and Oceans Canada told The Narwhal the biomass of herring has been increasing coastwide since 2010, and the herring in the Strait of Georgia are “in the healthy zone.”

The federal department said “spawn in the Strait of Georgia has shifted northward within recent history,” but stocks have “remained highly productive” and “supported commercial fisheries for a prolonged period.”

When asked what it would take for Fisheries and Oceans Canada to implement a moratorium, it did not answer directly. The department’s statement said it makes its management decisions annually, based on the “best available science” and input from First Nations, commercial harvesters, and other stakeholders.

But First Nations leaders shared they are struggling to have meaningful dialogue with the department. The hereditary chiefs said Fisheries and Oceans Canada has not been returning their calls since they called for the moratorium in November.

At the February forum Kurt Irwin, councillor for Penelakut Tribe, said he called Fisheries and Oceans Canada with concerns about herring and was dismissed.

“I’m a little unclear why DFO is not here today and listening to the concerns of Indigenous people,” he said. “I think that’s part of truth and reconciliation. I thought we were moving on that, but apparently we might not be if they’re not here to even listen to what people are saying.”

The department’s assertion herring are shifting north brings no comfort for Irwin, because of its implications for First Nations who rely on herring and the ecosystem.

“They’re moving, and they’re not coming back. DFO, as far as I’m concerned, should be just as concerned as everybody else.”

“We really need action,” Tseycum Hereditary Chief Vern Jacks, or XÁLÁȾE, told The Narwhal. When asked about the department’s arguments that data shows herring are stable, he responded, “They just sit in their office, they do the computer thing. That’s all they know. But we go out. We know where they are.”

“We used to have herring when I was a young fella,” Jacks added. “Nothing now.”

Scientists say there is evidence fish and animals return home

Some western science aligns with the nations’ ancestral knowledge and lived experience. Marine biologist Doug Swanston told CBC research suggests herring may return to home spawning grounds like salmon do. He identified pollution, development, overfishing and a lack of spawning habitat as factors that need to be further investigated.

Salmon are known for spawning in the rivers where they were born. But Daniel Pauly, professor emeritus from the UBC Institute for Oceans and Fisheries, said research has suggested many fish and animals returning to the place they were born or hatched. It’s a means of optimization, he explained. 

“Their very survival indicates the place they were born worked for them, so they go back there,” he said. “It’s biological logic.” He said genomics studies have demonstrated sharks returning to where they’re born. 

“We have multiple sources of evidence,” he said. “Not only what the Elders know … but also from modern genomics.”

By denying herring return home — meaning they are ‘philopatric’ in science terms — “DFO doesn’t have to bother with allowing them to rebuild,” Pauly argued. Instead, they are banking on one stock that they say is moving northwards.

Across the world, fish seem to be relocating north due to warming sea temperatures. If that happens with herring it’s possible they will be pushed into habitat that does not work for them, Pauly said, such as one that does not have enough kelp.

“They don’t have a choice. They don’t have a choice of saying whether the temperature is not right for them, so they have to leave.” he said.

“All of this is happening, and the DFO pretends that all these people around them — scientists, Elders, other people — that they are just noise.”

Analyst says DFO data doesn’t consider how spawning distribution seems to be getting smaller over space and time — and that could lead to collapse

John Driscoll is a fisheries science and policy analyst with the David Suzuki Foundation and an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia, and he sits on the Fisheries and Oceans Canada Integrated Herring Harvest Planning Committee. 

He said there’s a broad interpretation within the federal department and the commercial industry that the commercial fishery targets one large herring population. But First Nations say there are distinct subpopulations in the Strait’s primary spawning area, something that western scientific methods have been unable to definitively prove nor rule out, and say it’s possible the commercial fishery has been harvesting from these smaller stocks. 

“I have confidence they did exist,” he said. “The question is are they still here?”

He said “tremendous” overfishing in the 1960s could have affected those distinct subpopulations — which would be an “inherent loss” to First Nations.

Driscoll said specific language becomes very important when talking about herring, when so much is still unknown. While some say the herring are shifting northward, he will be careful to say there are herring increases in the north and decreases in the south — because to say there is a shift northwards implies it is one population.

He said Fisheries and Oceans Canada stock assessments consider overall biomass, which appears stable, but do not consider how herring spawns have been contracting, in smaller areas and over shorter intervals. 

They don’t take into account “changes in distribution or drivers of that change,” he said. 

“The danger is we are blind right now to the possible hidden erosion of diversity within both the herring population and the diversity of the habitats,” he said. 

He doesn’t just mean the possibility of genetically distinct subpopulations, but simply diversity in the distribution of spawning in different spaces at different times.

“Thee idea is that the more diversity in the subpopulations you have, the steadier the biomass will be across all your subpopulations,” he said. “Some will go up, some will go down … but overall, just like a diversified portfolio of stocks, the overall effect is that it’s relatively steady.”

If diversity erodes unnoticed, and conditions change, “you open yourself up to unforeseen declines,” he said.