Research Document - 2014/077
The Atlantic mackerel (Scomber scombrus L.) fishery in NAFO Subareas 3 and 4 in 2013
By François Grégoire, Linda Girard and Mélanie Boudreau
Abstract
In recent years, landings of Atlantic mackerel (Scomber scombrus L.) in the Northwest Atlantic have dropped dramatically from 111,801 t in 2006 to less than 13,000 t since 2011. In eastern Canada, Atlantic mackerel landings decreased from 53,649 t in 2006 to 14,400 t in 2011, 6,468 t in 2012, and 7,431 t in 2013. Since the beginning of the 2000s, most of the Canadian landings were made on the west and east coasts of Newfoundland by small and large seiners. In 2013, Newfoundland landings came mostly from unit area 4Rb with a total of 4,354 t or 59% of all Canadian landings. In addition to this sharp decline of commercial landings, Atlantic mackerel has almost disappeared of the catches from the multidisciplinary groundfish surveys conducted on the Scotian Shelf.
Mean sizes from line and gillnet catches are declining and for some years they are below the historical averages. Condition index, which appears to be related to the temperature of the cold intermediate layer (CIF), has declined since 2009. Proportion of mature fish at age has not changed much over the years unlike the proportion of maturity at length for which the highest values were measured in the 2000s.
In the early 2000s, Canadian landings were strongly dominated by fish from the 1999 year-class. Between 2000 and 2003, fish from this year-class have accounted for between 41% and 77% of all the catches in numbers, which had not been observed since the end of the 1960s. The relative importance of this year-class fell rapidly from 2005 in favour of the 2003, 2005, 2007, and 2008 year-classes which were rapidly caught so that the 2013 catch at age is characterized by very few fish older than four years old. The index of the relative strength of the 2010 year-class is high but the latter has been calculated on three age groups only. Therefore, it is premature to comment on the real strength of this year-class. The total catches of Atlantic mackerel in eastern Canada remain underestimated and there are no data on the discards at sea from the line fishery. Recreational catches are probably very important but not recorded.
The significant decrease of mackerel landings observed over the past years as well as the absence of older fish in the catches suggest that the stock is in a state of overfishing. The real level of overfishing could be misjudged and underestimated due to the poor quality of catch data.
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.
- Date modified: