N.L. sea urchin fishery in jeopardy, says owner of one of the province's only plants
CBC
When he was in high school, Ethan Blake drove from Gander Bay to Stoneville to earn some extra cash.
He mostly cleaned and did odd jobs at the urchin fish plant owned by Hodder’s Shellfish. In addition to his earnings, it also got Blake thinking about his career choices.
“I like being on the water every day, and I also like being in the water,” he said.
Blake now owns his own fishing enterprise. It’s a passion that keeps him at home in central Newfoundland.
His idyllic future may be in jeopardy, however, if he is not permitted to fish in other bays where the urchin stock remains untouched.
“This year is probably the worst year we've had since I started," Blake said. “We're not getting so good a roe.”
Sea urchins are harvested when commercial divers team up with license holders to collect urchins from the ocean’s floor. They are taken for their roe — or uni — and sold worldwide. It's a delicacy in Japan, and in Canada it's an industry worth about $6 million.
The urchin fishery does not have maximum weight landings for harvesters, called total allowable catch. It’s instead controlled by established seasons, number of licenses and restricting fishing areas.
Urchin-fishing areas are aligned with lobster-fishing areas. Like lobster, licenses are valid only within the fishing area associated with the harvester’s home port.
Unlike lobster, however, there are only 52 commercial licenses issued throughout the province for urchins.
Of those, only 13 have had urchin landings this season.
“Seventy-five per cent of our shorelines, there's not ever been [urchins] harvested,” said Jerry Hodder, owner of Hodder’s Shellfish.
“That confines us to just fish in those areas, and not explore the rest of the island. And, you know, it's very frustrating as a diver looking at where you can actually fish.”
Hodder’s Shellfish wants Fisheries and Oceans Canada to consider offering exploratory, or temporary, licenses to the harvesters actually involved in the fishery to go into bays where the urchins sit untouched on the ocean’s floor.
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