Science Response 2019/027

Harvest Advice for Pacific Sardine (Sardinops sagax) in British Columbia Waters for 2019 Season

Context

The northern subpopulation of Pacific Sardine (Sardinops sagax) in the eastern Pacific Ocean (California Current Ecosystem) has a distribution that can range between Baja California to southeast Alaska. In winter and spring months, most of this stock has the tendency to occur in waters off the California coast in association with spawning. Prior to, and during summer months, large aggregations of Pacific Sardine migrate from spawning habitat to more northern waters mainly to forage. Migratory patterns can be affected by age structure, population size and oceanographic conditions. Typically, most Pacific Sardines that migrate into British Columbia (BC) waters are the larger and older fish in the population.  Pacific Sardine has not been fished in BC waters since 2012 due to reduced migration (a general absence of Pacific Sardine in BC waters) and formal fishery closures in 2015 to 2018.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) adopted a harvest control rule in 2013 that applies a harvest rate to an estimate of age-1 year and older (age-1+) biomass that exceeds 150,000 t to calculate potential harvest options for the BC sardine fishery (DFO 2013). As described in the 2013 Science Advisory Report, a range in harvest rates from 3-5% was selected to calculate potential harvest options. The age-1+ biomass estimate used in the harvest control rule is based on stock assessment efforts conducted by the United States (US) National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Updates to the 2017 stock assessment model of the northern subpopulation of Pacific Sardine were conducted by the United States (US) National Marine Fisheries Service of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 2018 and 2019. Results from the 2019 update include information on stock status and forecasts of age-1+ sardine biomass informed by data sets representing the most current information on fishery landings, biological sample data and fishery independent surveys until December 2018 (described in Hill et al. 2019).

DFO Fisheries Management requested that DFO Science Branch incorporate the updated 2019 US stock assessment results into the 2013 BC fishery harvest control rule and provide harvest advice for Pacific Sardine for the 2019 season. Specifically, this Science Response (SR) provides information on the northern subpopulation of Pacific Sardine (associated with the California Current Ecosystem) to report on its biomass status, exploitation rates, commercial landings, and harvest options for the 2019 BC Pacific Sardine fishing season. Objectives of this report are to:

1. Report the results of applying the harvest control rule for a range of harvest rates from 0.03 to 0.05 in increments of 0.01, if the expected stock biomass is above the escapement buffer of 150,000 tonnes; and
2.  Identify uncertainties associated with this harvest advice.

A formal Canadian stock assessment was not conducted in 2019 so the following advice is based on the multi-year method approved in 2013 (DFO (2013).  As such, for a full understanding of Science recommendations, uncertainties, and future considerations, readers are referred to DFO (2013).

This Science Response results from the Science Response Process in May 2019 on Harvest Advice for Pacific Sardine (Sardinops sagax) in British Columbia Waters for 2019.

Complete document (PDF, 199 KB)

Accessibility Notice

This document is available in PDF format. If the document is not accessible to you, please contact the Secretariat to obtain another appropriate format, such as regular print, large print, Braille or audio version.