The Canadian federal Fisheries Resource Conservation Council (FRCC)
claims cod were overfished off Newfoundland and Labrador last season. It
attributed the problem to recreational, not commercial fishing.

In a letter to Fisheries and Oceans Minister Robert Thibault, Council
chairman Fred Woodman said the levels of catch in the recreational fishery far
exceeded the Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ predictions and are
“unjustifiably high and concentrated given the current state of the stock.” The
Council does not support a recreational fishery on northern cod.

Woodman added that the total cod taken was nearly 7,000 tons while the set
Total Allowable Catch (TAC) was 5,600. He attributed 1,900 tons of that to
recreational fishing. According to Woodman, the overrun was mostly because of
the food fishery, which took in 1,900 tons.

The council’s 14 members are appointed by the Fisheries and Oceans
Minister to serve three-year terms, and the council is largely funded by the DFO.
Membership includes DFO personnel serving ex officio.

Its comments on overfishing came as no surprise to Earle McCurdy,
president of the Fish, Food and Allied Workers.

“Not only did recreational fishermen overfish,” McCurdy said. “Commercial
fishermen actually underfished slightly. The ratio of recreational fishing to
commercial fishing is way out of proportion, and the priorities are reversed.”

In response to Woodman’s call to reduce the quotas across the board,
McCurdy said there was “not room to reduce commercial tonnage. And we
expect the Minister to maintain the commercial quotas.”

In another report, the FRCC recommendations on the fishery in the Gulf of
St. Lawrence noted that cod stocks continue to be a major focus of concern and
that the burgeoning seal herd is the chief culprit for the failure of the stocks to
recover.

The recommendations on the seal herd got the attention of Newfoundland
fishermen, according to McCurdy.

“Overall, the [FRCC] report didn’t really contain any surprises,” McCurdy
said. “More importantly, we certainly agree with the section on the impact that
the seals have, especially on the cod fishery. That we fished out the cod stocks
years ago is no longer the point. The point is that voracious seals are preventing
the recovery of the cod stocks. We agree with the FRCC’s strong language.”

The council urged that “areas where groundfish in the Gulf of St. Lawrence
are particularly vulnerable to predation be identified and considered for
protection as ‘seal exclusion zones.’ “

“The FRCC also recommends that the seal harvest management plans
include recommendations in herd size to levels that will sustain a long-term seal
industry and are compatible with groundfish rebuilding objectives.”

“As in the past,” it stated, “the large seal population continues to be the major
concern raised in every consultation held by the Council in 2002. The FRCC,
along with the fishing industry, is convinced that predation by seals may be
preventing the recovery of the two major cod stocks in the northern and southern
Gulf.”

As for the cod stocks themselves, Woodman told Thibault, “The Council is
concerned about the prospects for the future of the cod stocks. While we do not
recommend a change to commercial catch levels, we consider this the last year
we can follow this maintenance strategy while so few positive signals are evident
in these stocks.”

In the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Council is proposing that the Total
Allowable Catch for cod remain unchanged at 7,000 tons for 2002/2003. In the
southern Gulf, the Council proposes, it should remain unchanged at 6,000 tons
for 2002/2003.