Long-lived rockfish like yelloweye (Sebastes ruberrimus) support food, social and ceremonial fisheries for Central Coast First Nations. They are also among the species most exposed to size-selective harvest, benthic disturbance and ocean change. Because they live for decades, the consequences of a management decision take decades to read.
Do spatial protections work? In recent decades DFO has managed groundfish with a combination of spatial tools, such as protected areas, and aspatial tools, such as total allowable catch. That combination amounts to a natural experiment across Pacific Canada. Using a regional dataset on relative abundance and body size, we find that groundfish with diverse life histories increase in size and abundance closer to spatial protections, and we are examining whether those protections confer spillover to neighbouring populations.
Life-history variation across the coast. Groundfish traits respond to their environment, including to fishing. We quantify spatial and temporal patterns in those life histories along Canada’s Pacific coast, and relate them to shifting ecosystem drivers such as bottom temperature and oceanographic indices.
Can we detect a recovery if it happens? A protected area network is only useful if its monitoring can distinguish a recovery from noise. We are testing whether current monitoring strategies can reliably detect and estimate the rockfish recoveries expected within the marine protected area network being developed for the Northern Shelf Bioregion, with the aim of giving survey planners something realistic to design against.
Earlier work from this program identified co-occurring hotspots for long-lived rockfishes, glass sponges and corals, and those findings were used to guide spatial planning for the draft MPA Network. This work continues to support CCIRA and Central Coast First Nations in co-governance and in rebuilding plans for West Coast groundfish.