Order Giving Notice of Decisions Not to Add Certain Species to the List of Endangered Species — 2
2 Canary rockfish ( Sebastes pinniger ) The Minister of the Environment has recommended, on the advice of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, that the Canary rockfish not be added to the List. COSEWIC assessed Canary rockfish as a threatened species in November 2007 due to population decline. Canary rockfish range from the Gulf of Alaska to northern Baja California. The Puget Sound/Georgia Basin population of Canary rockfish is listed as threatened under the US Endangered Species Act (April 2010), although the US population has been increasing since fishing efforts were reduced in 1999. COSEWIC identified fishing as the primary threat to this species. Canary rockfish are targeted by commercial trawl and hook and line fisheries. The Canary rockfish is one of many rockfish species managed through the Commercial Groundfish Integration Pilot Program. A small amount of catch, often non-directed, is taken in the First Nations fisheries, recreational fisheries and commercial salmon troll fisheries. In response to the 2007 COSEWIC assessment, reductions to the catch limits for Canary rockfish were put into place in the commercial and recreational fisheries. A recent stock assessment by DFO notes an increase in overall abundance that indicates this population may recover at current levels of fish mortality. The recent upturn in abundance, however, is highly uncertain and may not be sustained. The socio-economic costs of adding Canary rockfish to the List would be significant. Current stock assessments suggest that further harvest restrictions are not necessary to recover the species. Listing the species as threatened on the List would trigger prohibitions under sections 32 and 33 of SARA, which would require that any activity that would result in killing, harming, harassing, capturing or taking an individual of the listed species be stopped immediately. This would include any fishing activity, if the Canary rockfish is caught as bycatch while listed as threatened or endangered. Live release is not an option since Canary rockfish are killed by the rapid changes in pressure experienced when this deep water species is brought to the surface. In calculating the costs of listing this species, it was assumed that recovery efforts associated with ensuring that the fishery operates in a sustainable manner will occur regardless of the listing decision. Costs therefore only reflect incremental costs from a SARA listing, which is the loss in profits from the Canary rockfish harvest, given that the full monetary value of the Canary rockfish fishery would be lost. If listed, the full value of profits from the Canary rockfish fishery, approximately $11.8M over 40 years ($1M annualized), would be lost, with the majority of the profit losses ($0.9M annualized) borne by the commercial harvesters. Therefore, DFO will continue to manage this species under the Fisheries Act by permanently adopting the Commercial Groundfish Integration Pilot Program, and ensure adequate catch monitoring is in place. This will allow fisheries management activities to respond to any increases in harvesting via implementation of a TAC and individual quotas for the groundfish trawl fishery. In addition, the TAC can be reduced if new scientific information suggests that current harvest is inconsistent with the Precautionary Approach policy. In direct response to COSEWIC’s 2007 assessment, Canary rockfish catch limits for commercial harvesters and recreational fishers were reduced. Initiatives to reduce harvest in the commercial sector and improve information included multi-species surveys to monitor relative abundance, 100% at-sea and dockside monitoring of all catch and full catch accountability by all commercial groundfish harvesters. These initiatives will continue to be implemented along with 100% retention of rockfish and implementation of reduced individual quotas and transferability of quotas between all commercial groundfish licences. Instead of listing the species on