The squid jigging grounds are providing a valuable fishery once again in Newfoundland and Labrador, with a landed value that has increased 10-fold from 2017 to 2019.
“It’s really a fishery that’s hard to predict. We’ve gone years and years with no landings whatsoever and in the last three years have had substantial landings, each year being better than the last,” said Robert Keenan, project manager with the Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union (FFAW).
According to statistics from the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, in 2016, the squid fishery had a landed value of $207,113, with 134,208 kgs landed. In 2017, the landings and landed value more than doubled to $517,395 with 313,069 kgs landed. In 2018, the value jumped to $2,348,390, with landings of 1,205,182 kgs. In 2019, a total of 2,633,439 kgs was caught with a landed value of $5,076,996.
“There’s a long tradition of squid fishing in Newfoundland and Labrador,” said Keenan. “Around the time of the moratorium it died off. It’s come back in fits and starts since then.”
Managed by the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO), the total allowable catch for 2020–22 in NAFO Subareas 3 and 4 is 34,000 tonnes annually, said Rod Drover, DFO communications advisor. The combined share of Canada and the EU is 29,467 tonnes.
The NAFO Scientific Council completed an assessment of Northern shortfin squid in September 2019, said Drover. In its stock assessment report, the scientific council noted “the 2019 values indicated that the stock may be moving towards a high productivity period,” said Drover. The stock is scheduled to be assessed again in 2022.
The squid fishery runs from Aug. 1 to Dec. 31 and is harvested by the inshore fleet.
“There’s a lot of harvesters, mostly on the northeast coast of the province,” said Keenan. “There would be several thousand I suppose.”
The vast majority of the catch is used for bait locally, said Keenan, while some is exported to a variety of places, primarily South Korea and Japan.
Squid “is the preferred bait for the snow crab fishery so we have significant bait demand just internally in Newfoundland and Labrador and we do export to Nova Scotia as well,” said Keenan.
Price-wise, the value has been good, said Keenan, and “as far as we know the markets are good,” adding the squid fishery is “a very important fishery for harvesters right now.”
This year, fishermen in N.L. were receiving in the range of $.75/pound for their squid catches.
Photos by Jennifer Oake and Krista Jestican
