West Coast of Vancouver Island - Exploitation

The productive WCVI area has supported multiple commercial fisheries at various times during the last century, including pelagic fisheries for Pacific herring (Clupea pallasi), Pacific hake (Merluccius productus), salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.), and Pacific sardine (Sardinops sagax), and demersal fisheries for flatfish (including Pacific halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis)), rockfish (Sebastes spp.), sablefish (Anoplopoma fimbria), lingcod (Ophiodon elongatus), spiny dogfish (Squalus acanthias), and Pandalid shrimp (Pandalus spp.). The average total BC catch of fish was approximately 30,000 t during the 1920s to the mid-1960s, and increased to 100,000 t during the late 1980s to late 1990s (McFarlane et al. 1997, McFarlane et al. 2009). These trends in catches were also observed in offshore areas of statistical areas 24, 25, 124, 125, where catches were approximately 6,100 t in 1980 and increased in the early to mid-1990s (20,000 to 28,000 t; Figure 1). Catches were lower in the late 1990s to mid-2000s, then increased to the 20,000-30,000 t range (Figure 1). Record high catches in 2010 were due to large catches of Pacific hake; variability in catches of hake tend to drive the variability in total fish catch.

The majority of catch during the first half of the 20th century was comprised of clupeoids, sardine and herring, as part of the reduction fisheries. Between 1917 and 1966, average annual catches of herring and sardine were approximately 65,000 t and 31,000 t, respectively (Thomson and Ware 1988). The Pacific sardine population collapsed in 1946 (Ware and Thomson 1991) and the Pacific herring population collapsed in the mid-1960s and the reduction fishery was closed. A roe-fishery for Pacific herring opened in 1972, but was closed again in recent years due to low biomass. Herring is still an important species in the WCVI ecosystem, since a large biomass of the Strait of Georgia stock forages in this area in summer months. Sardines again appeared in BC waters in 1992 (Hargreaves et al. 1994) and a commercial fishery began in 2002. Other minor catches included Pacific halibut, spiny dogfish, and lingcod (McFarlane et al. 2009). An offshore stock of Pacific hake, generally considered a seasonal migrant into this area with warmer conditions, was discovered in the early 1960s and average annual mid-water trawl catches have been approximately 42,000 t (McFarlane et al. 1997). In statistical areas 124 and 125, hake catches varied between zero and approximately 12,000 t during 1980-2009 and peaked in 2010 (40,600 t), representing an average of approximately 20% of total catches there. Bottom trawl fisheries began in the mid-1940s and capture flatfish (e.g., Dover sole), a variety of rockfish species, Pacific cod, and spiny dogfish (McFarlane et al. 2009). Fisheries for several species using mid-water trawls, longlines, and traps expanded to the slope area after the 1977 extension of Canada’s jurisdiction to the 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ; McFarlane et al. 2009). Commercially captured species include several rockfish species, such as Pacific Ocean perch and yellowtail rockfish, as well as sablefish (McFarlane et al. 2009). Shrimp trawl fisheries also occur off the WCVI. Scientific assessments suggest that most commercial species in the ecosystem are fully exploited.