Canada adds warm-water fish to list of species monitored on East Coast

Canada adds warm-water fish to list of species monitored on East Coast

Source: CBC News

6/8/2021

In a sign of the times, several warm-water fish species were added to the annual summer research vessel survey off the coast of Eastern Canada in 2020.

The amount of spawning-age blackbelly rosefish is estimated at 4,000 tonnes — the most ever, according to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Scientists say the northward movement into Canadian waters has followed warming ocean temperatures in the Atlantic.

Monitoring for the blackbelly rosefish, john dory, trigger fish, tilefish fish, dusky shark and others was included in the DFO summer trawl survey along the Scotian Shelf and Bay of Fundy for the first time last year.

It was done at the request of the commercial fishing industry, which is capturing them accidentally — called bycatch — but cannot land them because they are not included in any Canadian commercial fish licence conditions.