Rebecca Schijns is a Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada-based fisheries scientist at Oceana Canada. She has an academic background in biology, as well as oceans and fisheries studies. In her current role, she provides research on fisheries and marine conservation issues to inform and support the goals of Oceana Canada’s core campaigns.
In a recent SeafoodSource article, stakeholders in Canada’s Northern cod fishery expressed optimism about the restoration of the stock and celebrated the fishery’s reopening in 2024.
However, the optimism represents a premature and misleading portrayal of the stock’s health, according toOceana Canada analysis.
While catch rates and product quality may appear strong on the surface, these snapshots of commercial performance cannot replace the broader picture provided by rigorous scientific assessment. In reality, according to an assessment from Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), Northern cod remains in a depleted state, and rebuilding has stalled since 2017. DFO projects a 56 percent to 71 percent probability of further decline over the next three years, even under current catch levels, heightening the risk of returning to the “critical zone” – the level, according to longstanding fisheries policy, that DFO must avoid in order to prevent serious harm to the stock.
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