FFAW not surprised by the tone of briefing on capelin stock

FFAW-Unifor is not surprised with the tone of a technical briefing held by DFO on the 2J3KL capelin stock. While fish harvesters are optimistic that more favourable environmental conditions could lead to stock growth, the union is not pleased with how DFO set the Limit Reference Point for capelin.

FFAW-Unifor President Greg Pretty said, “FFAW-Unifor is not surprised with the tone of today’s technical briefing by DFO Science, which have been consistently negative, irrespective of the data.”

Increased productivity for zooplankton is a good indicator for capelin health, given that the capelin stock is a bottom-up driven species the union says.

DFO acknowledged that capelin were larger in last year’s survey.

FFAW-Unifor is asking for more priority to be given to understanding the capelin stock prior to the high levels of the late 1980s.