A previous article in The Navigator covering the effect of climate change on snow crab has one Newfoundland and Labrador harvester concerned over the power written word can have on the industry.
In The Navigator’s November 2024 edition, Darrell Mullowney, an aquatic science biologist with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), spoke on the effects climate change is having on three shellfish species — snow crab, lobster and Northern shrimp. In speaking about snow crab, Mullowney portrayed a bleak future for what is currently the province’s most lucrative fishery.
“Our short and our long-term prospects are not looking very good right now. We’re definitely projecting a decline in the crab coming in the short-term,” said Mullowney. “Looking beyond the short-term, if it keeps warming, it’s not very plausible that we’ll ever get back to a big crab resource again. Not to the scale that we’ve seen.”
Gerard Chidley, a fish harvester from Renews, N.L., said that statements like the one from Mullowney can have far-reaching implications on the industry.
“The Navigator has probably got one of the largest, most widespread readerships in Atlantic Canada… and that encompasses the banking industry,” said Chidley. “So, when they look at a view from a DFO scientist that [says] the short-term and long-term prospective of crab is not great for the next few years, that has a tendency to make them look at it like, ‘OK, is this something we should be continuing to invest in and to lend money to harvesters?’”
Chidley said that Mullowney’s statement lacks balance, as the industry view of the N.L. crab stock is a stark departure from the viewpoint that DFO has espoused.
“Our industry; we’ve been involved in this a long, long time, and this year and the last number of years has been some of the best years we’ve seen,” said Chidley.
“Mullowney cites warming water trends as the main culprit in all of this. Well, in actual fact, in [Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization division] 3K and 2J, predation is the bigger issue on what happens with crab. The cod stocks have been fairly strong down that way and Greenland halibut and a huge seal population. You can’t just go blame warming water… Our bottom temperatures are fairly constant. We may be a degree or a degree-and-a-half for a short period of time, and then it goes back to normal. We don’t have that big agitator effect that drives the warm water off the surface right down to the bottom here in the summertime.”
Chidley pointed out the gravity that the words of a DFO scientist can have, as the words of one scientist can be conflated with the entire department, and therefore the government as a whole.
“Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but this guy is a professional. So, when he speaks from his point, he’s actually speaking for DFO, because he’s a DFO scientist,” said Chidley.
“This is coming from a guy that has a fairly good authority from DFO. When he speaks, there’s people looking at it. It prevents investment in our industry.”
Chidley has been fishing since 1972, in which time he has served as an International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) Commissioner and a Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) Commissioner.
