April 16, 2025 • 10 mins
Rebuilding fisheries in Canada: Capelin biomass is only at 16% of its pre-collapse level, which spells disaster for northern cod's recovery. In this episode of How to Protect the Ocean, host Andrew Lewin breaks down the troubling state of Canada’s east coast fisheries. With DFO ignoring science-based recommendations, capelin is being harvested despite dangerously low numbers—and the ripple effects are hurting northern cod and entire coastal ecosystems.
Northern cod cannot recover without capelin, their primary prey, yet management plans still treat these species separately. Andrew explores the science behind this ecological link, why Oceana Canada is calling for an immediate pause on the capelin fishery, and how outdated management approaches are failing both fish and fishers. It’s time for bold leadership, honest science communication, and smarter fisheries policy.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Oh my God.
Look, how many times we
have to go through this?
When you don't manage
fisheries properly, we get a collapse.
And if you don't recover properly, you
will get prone to another collapse.
This is what's happening with capelin on
the east coast of Canada.
And we're going to talk about today why
capelin's population is 16% of its
pre-collapsed biomass.
(00:22):
That is not good. We're going to talk
about the health of cod,
which is the major predator of capelin,
and how the low biomass affects both
capelin and northern cod population.
We're going to talk about that on today's
episode of the how to protect the ocean
podcast. Let's start the show.
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another
exciting episode of the how to protect
the ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew
Lewin. And this is the podcast where you
find out what's happening with the ocean,
(00:44):
how you can speak up for the ocean, what
you can do to live for a
better ocean by taking action.
And on today's episode, we're going to be
talking about capelin, a small fish that
is really driving the population up and
down for northern cod. Now, northern cod,
as you know, we talked a lot about
actually we talked about capelin as well,
you know, about a year ago,
just in around a year ago.
(01:05):
But we talked about both these
populations and northern cod very famous
for the 1992 collapse in the moratorium
on fishing for cod. And there has been a
32 year moratorium on this species up
until 2024 when DFO, Department of
Fisheries and Oceans Canada, actually
opened up the fishery for cod, even
(01:25):
though not only Oceania, but other
organizations were saying, hey, you know
what, maybe we should pause on this,
especially the in-shore fishery group
were saying, hey, we
shouldn't open it up to the ocean.
The offshore fishery group and they were
saying, hey, look, capelin, we're
actually gonna open that too, because
that's okay to fish, but they're not
really doing very well. And we're going
to talk about it today because it's
something that we have to talk about.
(01:45):
The goal of the mission really of
Department of Fisheries and Oceans, DFO
here in Canada is to protect fisheries,
not only for the environment's sake, but
also for the sake of the fishing
industry. When the 1992 moratorium came
in for northern cod, there was uproar on
how it was affecting everybody's life.
Not only in Newfoundland, but along the
(02:06):
east coast of Canada and including down
south. This was devastating. It changed
the landscape, economic landscape of
Newfoundland, which was normally a
fishing province. It was known for its
fishing communities. Now they had to
switch and what they were going to do,
whether they had to switch from northern
cod to a different species like lobster,
crab or shrimp, or they had to get out of
the fishing business altogether after
(02:27):
generations and generations of fishing.
So not only does it affect the
environment, but it
also affects all the fish.
It affects all of the economy that's
surrounding it. Now, of course, when you
talk about the environmental impact, when
fishing for cod was really starting to be
known, there was rumors that you could
just drop a bucket into the water and you
would catch cod, like northern cod,
instantly. Obviously, that's not the case
(02:47):
anymore. We saw the dip. Politicians
ignored the dip. Scientists were telling
them, hey, you know what? There's a big
loss of northern cod. There's a big loss
of haddock. And when you get a loss of
big, demersal fish, you get an abundance
of small pelagic fish, which they eat.
So there's a lot of stuff going on here
from an environmental aspect and as well
from an economic aspect. So we need to
(03:08):
talk about what is happening. Oceana
released a press release. I got it right
in my email. I'm so glad it is. So thank
you, Oceana Canada for doing that.
Capeland is at 16% of its pre-collapse
biomass and it remains severely depleted.
So northern cod is also stagnating in its
recovery and cannot rebound without
healthy capelin stocks. And now just to
(03:28):
talk about what is happening with the
population of cod. Cod were
essentially recovering in 2017.
They were at a big growth. They were, I
think they were hovering around 300,000
and 600,000 tons and that was in 2017,
but have stalled since then. So we're
seeing obviously a stall of that
population growth, a loss in the
(03:49):
population of capelin. And capelin is the
big prey species for northern cod.
Northern cod are the ones that eat
capelin all the time. So that's something
that is really important. They're
obviously related and their populations
are really feeling it. Maybe there was a
big jump in population of northern cod. So,
you know, obviously in fishing industries
like hey, we want to fish more fish. They
didn't do it until 2024, but it could
(04:10):
have just stagnated because capelin kept
going down. Maybe it was because of an
increase in the population of northern
cod or it could be a lot of other factors
like cumulative like climate change could
be, you know, ocean pollution. It could
be a variety overfishing. It could be a
variety of things on the capelin side. So
that's something that we have to worry
about. Now, capelin showed signs of recovery in 2022 when fishing actually pause, but they resume the process of recovery. So they're going to be doing a lot of research on the
(04:33):
fishing in 2023 and 2024 and put it back
at risk. It just goes to show that the
fishing pressure is what's causing
capelin to go down. Now, cod has since
stall, as I mentioned, 300 to 600,000
tons in 2017, one third of its 1960
level. So obviously 1960s is where we
really started to pre started to see that
decline usually in the 70s. So here are
(04:53):
some of the recommendations that Oceania
has. So there's a few of them. There's
probably about six of them that I'm going
to read out. So the first one is pause
the commercial fishing of capelin
fishery. Right? That's the first thing.
So the first thing is pause the commercial fishing of capelin fishery. So
that's the first thing to do. The
population is going to be built when the
protections are in place. Number two,
reduce northern cod quota to support long
term recovery. Number three, establish
healthy thresholds and biomass targets
(05:14):
aligned with the fisheries act. This
fisheries act is a great act. It just got
redone right before 2019. And it's about
time and we strengthened it. But now we
got to use it. We got to actually
establish those healthy thresholds and
align themselves with the fisheries act
as well as biomass targets. Now biomass
is the weight, of course, right?
Abundance is the weight.
Abundance is the number of individuals
and number four, set annual harvest rules
(05:36):
for predictable rebuilding focused
fishing. That's the key. Number five, add
capelin to the stock provisions of the
fisheries act. This is to make sure that
they are measured and they are tracked
all the way through so that we can see if
their population goes up or down on an
annual basis. And then number six,
implement modern monitoring protocols per
(05:56):
DFOs Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Canada fishery monitoring policy. So all
these go into place to make sure that they are measured.
And then number seven, make sure that
these stocks are healthy. We've had
Jessica Shins from Oceana Canada on
before we talked about their annual
report just last year that was done in
2024 and done every year. And it talks
about how a lot of these fish don't have
monitoring plans. A lot of these fish
don't have these rebuilding protocols.
(06:18):
That's gut wrenching, especially with the
fact that they're lowering in the number
in population. And that's something that
we can have. So here's a thing without
these monitoring programs,
without these provisions,
they're not tracking it after this
(06:53):
collapse. So you got to make sure to
monitor the species so that we can find
out as a recovery. Maybe this had to do
with a lot of the recovery of cod and not
doing so well in his
recovery because you would
think if you had a moratorium on fishing
in 1992, you would expect that there'd be
a huge recovery, but that's not so. So
something else is going on there. Maybe
it's the prey species. The population has
gone up and down since then. And they
(07:15):
don't have the proper benchmarks for it.
And also recent quotas, especially in
2024 when there was a 38.5% rise for cod
fishing do not align with scientific and
recovery needs. It's not lining up. This
is the frustrating part. DFO says all
their decisions are based on science.
This is not true. This is not based on
(07:35):
science because the science is saying
different. And this is what happened in
the 1992 moratorium, like the collapse of
the codfish, the northern cod fishery. We
keep seeing this. Last concern and
challenges is fisheries management risk
long term economic failure and ecological
damage. So if you're not doing it
properly, you're going to have a problem.
Rebuilding these stocks, the capelin and
(07:55):
the cod stocks is essential for ocean
health, tourism and local communities.
People come for the northern cod. People
come for the capelin.
They're very, very important to
the east coast. It's entrenched in their
culture. It's entrenched in their
history. It's something that we need to
protect. Northern cod could recover in 11
years predicted to do that supporting 16
times more jobs and $233 million in
(08:16):
economic activity. Think about that.
Think about the benefits of doing that
and recover population in 11 years.
That's what's predicted. If you do it
properly, please do it properly. And of
course, failing to act now means losing a
rare opportunity to restore vibrant
fishery and sustainable
economy. So that's a big problem. Now, if
you probably want to like Andrew, like
(08:36):
this is what the science says. What are
the people say? Now, according to ocean
and according to April 2023 survey, 84%
of Newfoundland and Labrador residents
support a capelin fishery pause. That was
in April 2023 survey and 82% believe in
the federal government should do more to
manage forage fish like capelin and ocean
and Canada scientists stress the critical
ecological, cultural and economic roles
(08:58):
of capelin along the east coast of
Canada. Look, it's really simple folks.
We need to protect the species. We need
to make sure that we're putting the place
the management policies that have been
put into place by the fisheries act. We
just need to actually implement them. We
have to use them. That's all we need to
do. Just have to follow them. It's really
not that difficult, but there's always
pressure politically from the fishing
(09:20):
industry from outside factors and outside
companies. A big companies that are there
for the greed. They're there for the
money. They don't really care about the
cod fishery. They don't really care about
the capelin fishery. All they care is
about their money. I'm not talking about
artisanal fishers. These are the big, big
unions, the big companies that just want
to fish and they don't believe in the
science and I'm not saying this is
(09:41):
everybody, right? I don't want to
generalize here, but this is the concern
what happens and then the minister gives
in. They don't follow the science. They
have to balance it and I just don't agree
with the way they're doing it. They can't
just balance all the time. It doesn't
work. It does not work and shows just the
numbers that I've provided here today. So
that's something of concern. I want to
bring it to your
(10:01):
attention. I've covered this piece.
It's not really the science of these 2
fish, the relationship between these 2
fish for a number of years now and I
haven't seen anything getting better. In
fact, I'm seeing it getting worse. And so
that's a concern. We want to see what
would happen if we open up the fishery.
This is what's happening. We're seeing
lowered stocks. 16% of pre collapse level
for capelin. Not a very good sign. And of
course, the population of Northern Cod
(10:21):
stalling since 2017 growth. So not good.
I'd love to hear your thought about this.
If you're watching this on the YouTube
channel, just hit me up in the comments.
Let me know what you think. And of
course, if you wanted to talk to me.
Directly you can do so by going to speak
up for blue.com hitting me up on the
contact page below the form and you can
contact me directly in my personal email
or you can go to Instagram at how to
(10:43):
protect the ocean. That's Instagram at
how to protect the ocean. I want to thank
you so much for joining me on today's
episode of the how to protect the ocean
podcast. I'm your host Andrew Lewin from
the true North strong and free. Have a
great day. We'll talk to you next time
and happy conservation.
Oh my God.
Look, how many times we
have to go through this?
When you don't manage
fisheries properly, we get a collapse.
And if you don't recover properly, you
will get prone to another collapse.
This is what's happening with capelin on
the east coast of Canada.
And we're going to talk about today why
capelin's population is 16% of its
pre-collapsed biomass.
(00:22):
That is not good. We're going to talk
about the health of cod,
which is the major predator of capelin,
and how the low biomass affects both
capelin and northern cod population.
We're going to talk about that on today's
episode of the how to protect the ocean
podcast. Let's start the show.
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another
exciting episode of the how to protect
the ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew
Lewin. And this is the podcast where you
find out what's happening with the ocean,
(00:44):
how you can speak up for the ocean, what
you can do to live for a
better ocean by taking action.
And on today's episode, we're going to be
talking about capelin, a small fish that
is really driving the population up and
down for northern cod. Now, northern cod,
as you know, we talked a lot about
actually we talked about capelin as well,
you know, about a year ago,
just in around a year ago.
(01:05):
But we talked about both these
populations and northern cod very famous
for the 1992 collapse in the moratorium
on fishing for cod. And there has been a
32 year moratorium on this species up
until 2024 when DFO, Department of
Fisheries and Oceans Canada, actually
opened up the fishery for cod, even
(01:25):
though not only Oceania, but other
organizations were saying, hey, you know
what, maybe we should pause on this,
especially the in-shore fishery group
were saying, hey, we
shouldn't open it up to the ocean.
The offshore fishery group and they were
saying, hey, look, capelin, we're
actually gonna open that too, because
that's okay to fish, but they're not
really doing very well. And we're going
to talk about it today because it's
something that we have to talk about.
(01:45):
The goal of the mission really of
Department of Fisheries and Oceans, DFO
here in Canada is to protect fisheries,
not only for the environment's sake, but
also for the sake of the fishing
industry. When the 1992 moratorium came
in for northern cod, there was uproar on
how it was affecting everybody's life.
Not only in Newfoundland, but along the
(02:06):
east coast of Canada and including down
south. This was devastating. It changed
the landscape, economic landscape of
Newfoundland, which was normally a
fishing province. It was known for its
fishing communities. Now they had to
switch and what they were going to do,
whether they had to switch from northern
cod to a different species like lobster,
crab or shrimp, or they had to get out of
the fishing business altogether after
(02:27):
generations and generations of fishing.
So not only does it affect the
environment, but it
also affects all the fish.
It affects all of the economy that's
surrounding it. Now, of course, when you
talk about the environmental impact, when
fishing for cod was really starting to be
known, there was rumors that you could
just drop a bucket into the water and you
would catch cod, like northern cod,
instantly. Obviously, that's not the case
(02:47):
anymore. We saw the dip. Politicians
ignored the dip. Scientists were telling
them, hey, you know what? There's a big
loss of northern cod. There's a big loss
of haddock. And when you get a loss of
big, demersal fish, you get an abundance
of small pelagic fish, which they eat.
So there's a lot of stuff going on here
from an environmental aspect and as well
from an economic aspect. So we need to
(03:08):
talk about what is happening. Oceana
released a press release. I got it right
in my email. I'm so glad it is. So thank
you, Oceana Canada for doing that.
Capeland is at 16% of its pre-collapse
biomass and it remains severely depleted.
So northern cod is also stagnating in its
recovery and cannot rebound without
healthy capelin stocks. And now just to
(03:28):
talk about what is happening with the
population of cod. Cod were
essentially recovering in 2017.
They were at a big growth. They were, I
think they were hovering around 300,000
and 600,000 tons and that was in 2017,
but have stalled since then. So we're
seeing obviously a stall of that
population growth, a loss in the
(03:49):
population of capelin. And capelin is the
big prey species for northern cod.
Northern cod are the ones that eat
capelin all the time. So that's something
that is really important. They're
obviously related and their populations
are really feeling it. Maybe there was a
big jump in population of northern cod. So,
you know, obviously in fishing industries
like hey, we want to fish more fish. They
didn't do it until 2024, but it could
(04:10):
have just stagnated because capelin kept
going down. Maybe it was because of an
increase in the population of northern
cod or it could be a lot of other factors
like cumulative like climate change could
be, you know, ocean pollution. It could
be a variety overfishing. It could be a
variety of things on the capelin side. So
that's something that we have to worry
about. Now, capelin showed signs of recovery in 2022 when fishing actually pause, but they resume the process of recovery. So they're going to be doing a lot of research on the
(04:33):
fishing in 2023 and 2024 and put it back
at risk. It just goes to show that the
fishing pressure is what's causing
capelin to go down. Now, cod has since
stall, as I mentioned, 300 to 600,000
tons in 2017, one third of its 1960
level. So obviously 1960s is where we
really started to pre started to see that
decline usually in the 70s. So here are
(04:53):
some of the recommendations that Oceania
has. So there's a few of them. There's
probably about six of them that I'm going
to read out. So the first one is pause
the commercial fishing of capelin
fishery. Right? That's the first thing.
So the first thing is pause the commercial fishing of capelin fishery. So
that's the first thing to do. The
population is going to be built when the
protections are in place. Number two,
reduce northern cod quota to support long
term recovery. Number three, establish
healthy thresholds and biomass targets
(05:14):
aligned with the fisheries act. This
fisheries act is a great act. It just got
redone right before 2019. And it's about
time and we strengthened it. But now we
got to use it. We got to actually
establish those healthy thresholds and
align themselves with the fisheries act
as well as biomass targets. Now biomass
is the weight, of course, right?
Abundance is the weight.
Abundance is the number of individuals
and number four, set annual harvest rules
(05:36):
for predictable rebuilding focused
fishing. That's the key. Number five, add
capelin to the stock provisions of the
fisheries act. This is to make sure that
they are measured and they are tracked
all the way through so that we can see if
their population goes up or down on an
annual basis. And then number six,
implement modern monitoring protocols per
(05:56):
DFOs Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Canada fishery monitoring policy. So all
these go into place to make sure that they are measured.
And then number seven, make sure that
these stocks are healthy. We've had
Jessica Shins from Oceana Canada on
before we talked about their annual
report just last year that was done in
2024 and done every year. And it talks
about how a lot of these fish don't have
monitoring plans. A lot of these fish
don't have these rebuilding protocols.
(06:18):
That's gut wrenching, especially with the
fact that they're lowering in the number
in population. And that's something that
we can have. So here's a thing without
these monitoring programs,
without these provisions,
they're not tracking it after this
(06:53):
collapse. So you got to make sure to
monitor the species so that we can find
out as a recovery. Maybe this had to do
with a lot of the recovery of cod and not
doing so well in his
recovery because you would
think if you had a moratorium on fishing
in 1992, you would expect that there'd be
a huge recovery, but that's not so. So
something else is going on there. Maybe
it's the prey species. The population has
gone up and down since then. And they
(07:15):
don't have the proper benchmarks for it.
And also recent quotas, especially in
2024 when there was a 38.5% rise for cod
fishing do not align with scientific and
recovery needs. It's not lining up. This
is the frustrating part. DFO says all
their decisions are based on science.
This is not true. This is not based on
(07:35):
science because the science is saying
different. And this is what happened in
the 1992 moratorium, like the collapse of
the codfish, the northern cod fishery. We
keep seeing this. Last concern and
challenges is fisheries management risk
long term economic failure and ecological
damage. So if you're not doing it
properly, you're going to have a problem.
Rebuilding these stocks, the capelin and
(07:55):
the cod stocks is essential for ocean
health, tourism and local communities.
People come for the northern cod. People
come for the capelin.
They're very, very important to
the east coast. It's entrenched in their
culture. It's entrenched in their
history. It's something that we need to
protect. Northern cod could recover in 11
years predicted to do that supporting 16
times more jobs and $233 million in
(08:16):
economic activity. Think about that.
Think about the benefits of doing that
and recover population in 11 years.
That's what's predicted. If you do it
properly, please do it properly. And of
course, failing to act now means losing a
rare opportunity to restore vibrant
fishery and sustainable
economy. So that's a big problem. Now, if
you probably want to like Andrew, like
(08:36):
this is what the science says. What are
the people say? Now, according to ocean
and according to April 2023 survey, 84%
of Newfoundland and Labrador residents
support a capelin fishery pause. That was
in April 2023 survey and 82% believe in
the federal government should do more to
manage forage fish like capelin and ocean
and Canada scientists stress the critical
ecological, cultural and economic roles
(08:58):
of capelin along the east coast of
Canada. Look, it's really simple folks.
We need to protect the species. We need
to make sure that we're putting the place
the management policies that have been
put into place by the fisheries act. We
just need to actually implement them. We
have to use them. That's all we need to
do. Just have to follow them. It's really
not that difficult, but there's always
pressure politically from the fishing
(09:20):
industry from outside factors and outside
companies. A big companies that are there
for the greed. They're there for the
money. They don't really care about the
cod fishery. They don't really care about
the capelin fishery. All they care is
about their money. I'm not talking about
artisanal fishers. These are the big, big
unions, the big companies that just want
to fish and they don't believe in the
science and I'm not saying this is
(09:41):
everybody, right? I don't want to
generalize here, but this is the concern
what happens and then the minister gives
in. They don't follow the science. They
have to balance it and I just don't agree
with the way they're doing it. They can't
just balance all the time. It doesn't
work. It does not work and shows just the
numbers that I've provided here today. So
that's something of concern. I want to
bring it to your
(10:01):
attention. I've covered this piece.
It's not really the science of these 2
fish, the relationship between these 2
fish for a number of years now and I
haven't seen anything getting better. In
fact, I'm seeing it getting worse. And so
that's a concern. We want to see what
would happen if we open up the fishery.
This is what's happening. We're seeing
lowered stocks. 16% of pre collapse level
for capelin. Not a very good sign. And of
course, the population of Northern Cod
(10:21):
stalling since 2017 growth. So not good.
I'd love to hear your thought about this.
If you're watching this on the YouTube
channel, just hit me up in the comments.
Let me know what you think. And of
course, if you wanted to talk to me.
Directly you can do so by going to speak
up for blue.com hitting me up on the
contact page below the form and you can
contact me directly in my personal email
or you can go to Instagram at how to
(10:43):
protect the ocean. That's Instagram at
how to protect the ocean. I want to thank
you so much for joining me on today's
episode of the how to protect the ocean
podcast. I'm your host Andrew Lewin from
the true North strong and free. Have a
great day. We'll talk to you next time
and happy conservation.
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