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Listing the Striped Bass (Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence population) as threatened would trigger automatic prohibitions under sections 32 and 33 of SARA, which would result in significant socio-economic impacts on communities. The closure of some coastal fisheries would create a loss of profits for fish harvesters, the fish processing sectors and recreational fisheries. It is anticipated that such impacts on the Rainbow Smelt, Gaspereau and American Eel fisheries could result in an annual loss of profits for the industry that is estimated to range from $134,000 to $671,000. Listing the Striped Bass (Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence population) as threatened with a more flexible harm threshold would mitigate some of these impacts. However, this approach would result in additional costs related to the development and implementation of a recovery strategy and action plan required under SARA and would not result in a substantially different biological outcome in terms of the long-term recovery of this population.
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The scientific assessment of the potential for recovery of the Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence population of Striped Bass has identified additional management measures that can be implemented to further reduce bycatch in certain fisheries. The implementation of these mitigation measures should improve the potential to achieve the recovery targets for this population. DFO will implement these measures to enhance this population’s recent gains and to achieve reference levels indicative of long-term recovery. Furthermore, this assessment has identified the following measures that can sufficiently address the activities that result in the highest mortality level:
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These measures will limit access to the staging and spawning grounds during critical times, reduce interactions of the Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence population of Striped Bass with fishing gear, improve release practices, enhance conservation and protection efforts and allow for further research to better understand the population’s distribution. These measures will be legally enforceable to ensure the population’s protection and to enhance its recovery.
DFO will create new management measures under the Fisheries Act in a manner proportionate to the degree and type of risks affecting the population — mainly illegal fishing and bycatch in other fisheries. These measures are expected to prevent this population from becoming extirpated or extinct and to provide for its recovery and will not unduly impact Aboriginal communities, provincial authorities and affected stakeholders.
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If the species were listed with a bycatch cap in the vicinity of 370 tonnes per year, additional costs would be expected to total $10.4 million per year in loss of profits for producers (i.e. fishing industry). These estimated additional costs were compared to a baseline scenario with a bycatch cap of 900 tonnes per year. Using a long-term period of 15 years and discount rates of 3% and 8% of the incremental costs, the total present value of additional costs for this option is estimated to be $123.9 million (at 3%) and $88.8 million (at 8%).
DFO is committed to managing Cusk and has put in place a number of new management measures since 2007, such as the reduction in the bycatch cap to 650 tonnes per year. In addition, DFO will be implementing additional measures outlined below as part of the Plan to manage Cusk going forward. These measures include
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As a consequence of these new management measures, the probability of the biomass of Cusk increasing would be higher as compared to that estimated under the baseline scenario and, therefore, the additional benefits of listing Cusk on Schedule 1 of SARA would be less important.
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