What is the Department doing to enforce the closures in the RCAs?
Education and awareness programs with the various harvesters and the general public is an important approach. In addition, enforcement staff will be conducting dedicated and random patrols throughout the coast to monitor compliance. Q: The Minister set a “less than two per cent fishing mortality”. What does this mean? Have fisheries reached this goal? A: The harvest policy is to harvest inshore rockfish at a rate that is less than the natural mortality rate. The natural mortality rate has been estimated at two percent. With the harvest reductions put into place in 2002, a harvest rate of 1.5% has been accomplished to promote rebuilding. LINGCOD CONSERVATION: Q: What are the concerns about lingcod? A: For a variety of reasons including fishing impacts, lingcod in the Strait of Georgia are at very low abundance compared to the 1960’s and 1970’s. We need to take steps that will help to rebuild the population to more sustainable levels. These species co-exist with inshore rockfish on rocky
