How Decision-Making in Fisheries Management Contributes to Changes in the Fishery: A Case Study of North Atlantic Swordfish

Abstract

Fisheries management must constantly adapt to changes in stock status, shifts in effort, and national and international policy. The North Atlantic Swordfish Fishery is an interesting case study because of the migratory range of the target species, variability of the stock status, and the variety of management actions applied at national and international scales over the past six decades. Despite the dynamic nature of this fishery, there is a lack of documentation of the management history and how behaviour of the Canadian fleet changed in response to national and international agreements, new gear types, and different quota allocation schemes. The objectives of this project are (1) produce a timeline of the management changes affecting the Canadian North Atlantic Swordfish Fishery, and (2) examine for relationships between management changes and patterns in the fleet over time. Potential connections between fleet behaviour are identified as: (1) anticipatory effects prior to the international percentage allocations in 1995, and (2) a temporal shift in the Canadian fishery after the introduction of the ITQ system in 2002. These outputs will support the creation of improved North Atlantic Swordfish population models and management measures that better account for fleet dynamics. Although focused on the Canadian fleet, this project could be applied to other fleets in the international swordfish fishery.

Keywords: swordfish; fleet behaviour; fisheries management; ICCAT; stock assessments; Canadian longline; anticipatory effects; ITQ.