U.S. announces reduced East Coast commercial mackerel quota for 2023

The United States will proceed with a commercial fishery of the depleted East Coast mackerel stock it shares with Canada in 2023.

The U.S. quota was released this week, putting pressure on Canada which has yet to decide whether it will continue a total moratorium it imposed in 2022 to help rebuild the population.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. equivalent of the Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), announced on Tuesday a total allowable catch of 3,639 metric tonnes.

It was 27 per cent cut from 2022 in recognition that the transboundary stock remains in trouble and is overfished.

Canadian scientists say the population is in the "critical zone," where serious harm is occurring.

To rebuild the stock in 2022, DFO shut down all commercial mackerel fishing in Atlantic Canada, a major source of bait in the billion-dollar lobster fishery.

Environmentalist Katie Schleit, the fisheries director of the Halifax-based Oceans North, hopes Canada keeps the moratorium in 2023.

"We are disappointed that the U.S. didn't decide to close their commercial fishery in line with what Canada did," Schleit said Wednesday.

"It is a shared stock and so we would hope that both countries would make the same contribution to rebuilding the stock. Certainly, the science and the evidence of the state of the stock is pretty dire."

Frustration with Canadian ban

Canada's ban while Americans were still fishing the same depleted stock riled some in the industry in Atlantic Canada last year.

Martin Mallet, executive director of the Maritime Fishermen's Union, called it a "useless sacrifice."

The situation prompted federal Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray to lobby the U.S. for joint management of the mackerel stock.

"We don't support the fact that we had closures because the stock was in critical condition and the United States were fishing essentially that same stock," Murray told a parliamentary committee in December.

The appeal has not resulted in any agreement for joint management on mackerel.

DFO scientists will present their latest assessment later this month in Mont-Joli, Que., with a decision on whether a fishery proceeds in the following weeks.