Fish, Invertebrate, and Marine Mammal Bycatch in a Central Canadian Commercial Fishery for Arctic Char

Abstract Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, hosts Canada’s largest Arctic Char Salvelinus alpinus commercial fishery with waterbody-specific quotas managed under one Integrated Fisheries Management Plan that emphasizes ecosystem-based management and the need to understand bycatch in the fishery. Bycatch reporting in the fishery, however, remains deficient. In this study, we report on fish, invertebrate, and marine mammal bycatch recorded in logbooks from 2012-2018 at two commercial waterbodies fished using weirs (Halokvik, Jayko) and two fished using gillnets (Surrey, Ekalluk) in multiple Arctic char habitats (rivers, lakes, estuaries). Arctic Char not retained for commercial purposes (discards or those kept for subsistence) comprised the greatest amount of bycatch. Other bycatch included seven fish species(n = 633), one crab species (n = 5), and two seal species (n = 11). Weir fisheries had minimal non-target bycatch, with Halokvik reporting none and Jayko only one species. Gillnet fisheries exhibited the highest bycatch diversity, particularly at the Surrey estuarine fishery. Significant inter-annual variation in the amount of non-target bycatch was also observed at three of the four waterbodies. These findings offer insights for ecosystem-based management for this fishery, while providing a baseline for future monitoring.