Northern Shrimp Fishery Hit With 42 Per Cent Quota Cut

Late Thursday, July 14, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) officially announced want many were speculating – quota cuts to Northern shrimp.

As part of the management plan for 2016/17, DFO announced that in Northern Shrimp Fishing Area (SFA) 6, the total allowable catch will be reduced by 42.3 per cent from 2015/16 level of 48,196 tonnes to 27,825 tonnes.

As was previously announced, the Last In, First Out policy has been eliminated and replaced with proportional shares. The proportional shares going forward and the associated allocation for 2016/17 are as follows:

On July 6, Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) Minister Dominic LeBlanc announced he was accepting the recommendation of the Ministerial Advisory Panel Report to scrap the LIFO policy in favour of a system of proportional sharing between the inshore and offshore fleets in the future.

LeBlanc said that applying a principled approach of proportional sharing means that the inshore and offshore fleets, as well as indigenous peoples, will continue to share in the economic benefits of the northern shrimp resource.

Sharing arrangements, he said, must also respect land claims agreements and the interests of indigenous groups as well as the interests of adjacent coastal communities.