Most Canadian aquaculture fisheries exempted from U.S. whale watchlist

Most Canadian aquaculture operations have been exempted from a new United States rule requiring that seafood imports prove they do not harm whales, seals and other marine mammals.

Starting in 2023, all seafood entering the U.S. that hasn't been granted an exemption will have to demonstrate it is harvested with protections equivalent to those used in American fisheries — a so-called comparability finding now required under the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Countries had until Tuesday this week to apply for the comparability finding.

Since the pending rule change was announced in late 2016, the U.S. has created a list of foreign fisheries with just two categories: those that are "exempt," meaning a fishery poses little to no risk, and "export," meaning there is more than a remote likelihood the fishery will kill or seriously injure marine mammals.

In Canada, 25 of 36 aquaculture fisheries have been designated exempt following submissions by the federal government and an initial screening by U.S. authorities, said Tim Kennedy of the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance.

"I feel very confident that … the remaining will be put on the exempt list," said Kennedy.

In 2018, the industry voluntarily committed to not killing mammals — in this case, nuisance seals eating the harvest or damaging gear.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans later stopped issuing nuisance seal licenses for any fishery.

The measures were cited by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in its decision to exempt most but not all aquaculture fisheries.

Aquaculture fisheries designated as "export" could have been categorized as such due to a very few incidents.

For example, all aquaculture fisheries in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick — including salmon farms and shellfish operations — are exempt. Aquaculture fisheries in British Columbia and Newfoundland and Labrador are deemed export.

"It's regional. Even if there's two farm sites and there are 100 farms in the region, that puts the whole region on a sort of watch list or the so-called export list. But that's just because of particular incidents that happened over the last five years," Kennedy said. "It's not a restriction on exports, it's just something that needs to be clarified over the next few years."

Since 2018 snow crab and lobster fishermen in Atlantic Canada have been adapting to measures imposed to protect critically endangered right whales from gear entanglement.

Twenty died in the Gulf of St. Lawrence over a two-year period, although entanglements were implicated in two of the deaths.