Shrimp trawl fishery
The following profile provides the socioeconomic context of the shrimp trawl fishery in British Columbia. It includes an overview of the commercial sector. This overview is based on data collected from DFO commercial harvest logbooks and sale slips, public reports, and DFO surveys on harvest prices.
Long text version
2023 Economic profile of the shrimp trawl fishery
Commercial fisheries overview
Shrimp trawling in BC began in the 1930s and peaked in 1996. Landings have declined since, except for 2015 and 2016, due to high costs, low market demand, and precautionary management, including selective fishing and TAC limits. Over the last decade, landings have been primarily pink shrimp harvest off the West Coast of Vancouver Island, accounting for an average of 69% of landings by weight.
Key metrics for the shrimp trawl fishery, all values are from 2023 and in 2023 dollars:
- Landed value ($504K), decreased by 59% since 2022
- Wholesale value ($1.3M), decreased by 33% since 2022
- Active vessel (15), decreased by 32% since 2022
- Licence eligibilities (230, 26 of these are communal commercial licences), decreased by 2% since 2022
- Licence value ($42K), no change since 2022
Annual shrimp trawl landings and value (2023$) chart
Harvest (in tonnes)
- 1996 – 7,657 t
- 1997 – 3,149 t
- 1998 – 3,472 t
- 1999 – 2,700 t
- 2000 – 2,651 t
- 2001 – 2,397 t
- 2002 – 1,886 t
- 2003 – 1,177 t
- 2004 – 817 t
- 2005 – 927 t
- 2006 – 832 t
- 2007 – 753 t
- 2008 – 643 t
- 2009 – 644 t
- 2010 – 515 t
- 2011 – 545 t
- 2012 – 672 t
- 2013 – 616 t
- 2014 – 505 t
- 2015 – 4,194 t
- 2016 – 3,458 t
- 2017 – 219 t
- 2018 – 375 t
- 2019 – 868 t
- 2020 – 611 t
- 2021 – 139 t
- 2022 – 116 t
- 2023 – 80 t
Landed value (in 2023$)
- 1996 - $22M
- 1997 - $12M
- 1998 - $12M
- 1999 - $9.5M
- 2000 - $10.8M
- 2001 - $9.1M
- 2002 - $7.3M
- 2003 - $5.1M
- 2004 - $3.6M
- 2005 - $4.5M
- 2006 - $4.2M
- 2007 - $3.7M
- 2008 - $2.7M
- 2009 - $3.3M
- 2010 - $2.9M
- 2011 - $2.8M
- 2012 - $3.2M
- 2013 - $3.5M
- 2014 - $2.9M
- 2015 - $11.4M
- 2016 - $8.7M
- 2017 - $2.5M
- 2018 - $3.9M
- 2019 - $4.4M
- 2020 - $3.7M
- 2021 - $2.0M
- 2022 - $1.8M
- 2023 - $0.8M
Commercial fishery shrimp trawl - 2023 landed weight map
- Shrimp harvest: 61 thousand kilograms in total volume
Income diversification of licence holders in active fisheries (2023)
In 2023, 73% of revenues for shrimp trawl licence holders came from trawl fishing, with the rest coming from salmon troll (20%), salmon gillnet (4%), and tuna (3%).
Exports: Shrimps from BC are harvested, processed, and frozen locally. Main markets are China (56%), the Unites States (39%) and others (5%). Percentages are of total volume.Footnote 1
In 2023, $579 K in value-added from wholesaling and processing was generated by 22 companies, mostly located in the lower mainland.
The shrimp trawl fishery directly contributes $269K (GDP) to the provincial economy, with a direct employment and income contribution of 20 and $175K, respectively.
Shrimp and prawn made up 28% of recreational shellfish fishing days (6% of total fishing days) and 33% of shellfish expenditures (4% of coastwide expenditures).
Footnotes
- All values are from 2023 compared to 2022 in 2023-dollars by calendar year, unless otherwise specified.
- Licence eligibilities represents the number of issued licences.
Data
The commercial data and the recreational data that informed this work can be downloaded here.
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