Terms of Reference

Harvest Advice for Pacific Sardine (Sardinops sagax) in British Columbia Waters for 2014

Regional Science Response Process – Pacific Region

December 2013
Nanaimo, BC

Chairperson: Sean MacConnachie

Context

Pacific sardine (Sardinops sagax) from the Northeast Pacific (California Current) population has a distribution that can range between Baja California to southeast Alaska.  In winter and spring months, most of the Pacific Sardine population resides in waters off the California coast.  Prior to, and during summer months, large aggregations of Pacific Sardine migrate from key spawning habitat to more northern waters, but migratory patterns can be affected by 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 were not observed in 2013 during the annual pelagic trawl survey conducted in BC waters, nor were any detected by the Canadian commercial Pacific Sardine fleet.  The north-east Pacific Sardine population has been declining since a peak in 2006.

In 2013 Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) adopted a new harvest control rule that applies a harvest rate to the estimate of age-1 and older biomass that exceeds 150,000 t (DFO 2013) to calculate potential harvest.

Objectives

Science information and advice will be prepared on harvest scenarios for Pacific Sardine in BC following a Science Response process and reported in the document:

DFO. 2014. Harvest advice for Pacific Sardine (Sardinops sagax) in British Columbia waters for the 2014 season. DFO Can. Sci. Advis. Sec. Sci. Resp. 2014/nnn.

The objectives of this SR process 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;
2. Identify uncertainties associated with catch advice.

Expected Publication

• Science Response

Participation

• DFO (Science, Fisheries Management)
• Province of British Columbia
• Commercial fishing industry

References

DFO 2013. Review of harvest control rules for Pacific Sardine and seasonal biomass and migration in British Columbia for 2013. DFO Can. Sci. Advis. Sec. Sci. Advis. Rep. 2013/037.