Where are the northern prawns?

The author is an associate professor at the Institut des sciences de la mer de Rimouski and president and CEO of the consulting firm M — Expertise marine, specializing in environmental and oceanographic services.

For many people, the northern shrimp forms with the snow crab and the lobster the « Holy Trinity of crustaceans ». However, there will be fewer northern shrimp on our plates this year. Because unlike the other two, these tiny six-legged pink crustaceans are increasingly fragile. And experts are trying somehow to ensure the sustainability of this precious resource. Northern shrimp stocks are currently among the lowest observed in the past 30 years, conclude the scientists of the Shrimp Advisory Committee.

Quotas will be tightened, so that fewer shrimp will be caught in 2022: a few hundred tonnes less than the 18,000 tonnes allocated in 2021. The expected drop in income is approximately $2.5 million for the fleets in the Gulf,” said Patrice Element, of the Gaspésie Owner Captains Cooperative, in an interview with Radio-Canada in February.

The northern shrimp, which is about ten centimeters long at the most — its size being largely influenced by the temperature of the environment or the sex of the individuals (the males are smaller) — is found in the three oceans surrounding our country, in cold waters oscillating between 2 °C and 6°C. Although small, this shrimp plays a key role in ecosystems by feeding on a wide range of prey, down to fish carcasses, a great diversity of which can be detected (by DNA) in its stomach, due to his scavenger behavior. This has even led some scientists to propose the Northern Shrimp as an effective natural sampler to assess the molecular diversity of fish in marine ecosystems.

More than 17,000 tonnes are usually caught per year alone in the Atlantic part, including the areas of the estuary, Sept-Îles, Anticosti and the Esquiman channel (between Newfoundland and the North Shore ). More than half of the stocks from these areas are exported to overseas markets, including China, Denmark, the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan. It is one of the most important fisheries in the world, bringing in approximately half a billion dollars in annual revenue to Canadian fishermen.

In the Estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence, this crustacean has been fished with a trawl — a large net deployed from the back of a ship — since the 1960s. Initially, landings were estimated at a few dozen , even a few hundred tonnes, and it was not until 1982 that we began to impose a quota on the stock (12,999 tonnes at the time). The largest quotas were allocated in the early 2000s (more than 35,000 tonnes), and since 2015 they have been falling year on year.

Various factors explain the reduction in shrimp stocks. Global changes such as warmer water temperatures and lower oxygen levels, in the St. Lawrence as everywhere else. But also changes in the very structure of the ecosystem, which means that predators, such as redfish, are more and more numerous.

What is an inventory valuation?

Following the February meeting of the Shrimp Advisory Committee, where scientists and industry experts come together, it was agreed that care must be taken to ensure that we do not see the collapsing shrimp stock.

Like most Canadian marine resources, shrimp stocks are managed like a bank account. The balance increases thanks to the young which reach a sufficient size, and decreases because of predators or fishing. To estimate what the “withdrawal” may be, the experts also take into account the ecosystem approach to fisheries (which considers several species at the same time, in addition to evaluating the products and services that this structure provides to humanity). They are also developing harvesting strategies based on a precautionary principle — making a few fewer withdrawals than we could, to keep a small reserve, just in case.

The Department of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard has not yet announced its decision on the quotas that will be allocated to shrimp fishermen in 2022.