11/17/2017
DFO announced that the mackerel fishery would be closed as of yesterday morning, November 16, 2017 at 6:30 am. According to the announcement, the TAC had been reached. However, there is no evidence suggesting that the whole TAC has in fact been caught.
The latest quota update was announced to be 8291 tons, and according to harvesters very little mackerel was landed between that update and the announcement that the fishery would be closing.
When Ottawa announced the TAC of 10,000 tons months earlier, your Union was adamant that this increase was not in line with the biomass, and should have been higher. DFO’s premature closing of the fishing season without evidence of the TAC being reached, combined with a lower than expected TAC, is completely unacceptable.
Your Union has pressured DFO for answers, and we are pleased that the department is now reassessing mackerel landing information and a reopening is being considered. We will provide updates as they are made available.