Canada has decided to open its domestic northern shrimp fishery off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador for the first time in 11 years.
Shrimp Fishing Area 7 (SFA 7), which is located off the eastern coast of the Atlantic province, has been closed since 2015, when scientific assessments at the time determined the stock was in poor health.
That closure remained in place until Canada introduced a new stock assessment framework in 2025, aiming to better align assessment areas with the stock’s biological distribution.
According to Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), under the new framework, the shrimp population in the South Stock Assessment Region, which includes SFA 7, was determined to be in the “Healthy Zone.” As a result, Fisheries Minister Joanne Thompson has assigned a total allowable catch within SFA 7 of 1,367 metric tons for the 2026-2027 season.
“The shrimp fishery supports thousands of jobs on Canada’s East Coast. By reopening the commercial fishery in SFA 7, we are continuing to support the fishing industry on Canada’s East Coast and everyone who makes a living from it,” Thompson said.
DFO added that historical allocations within the fishing area will be maintained during the 2026-2027 season, except for the 9.4 percent portion of the TAC designated to the Prince Edward Island Consortium, which will be held in reserve pending further analysis.
Though the northern shrimp stock has shown enough recovery to warrant a reopened fishing season in Canada, the same story has not played out farther south.
In late 2025, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) decided to maintain a moratorium on fishing for northern shrimp through 2028 and decided on no sampling program in 2026.
ASMFC said its technical committee will continue to provide data on the shrimp fishery over the next few years, and if temperature or recruitment triggers are tripped, there may be more sampling programs in 2027 and 2028.
“For the recruitment trigger, three years of non-failed recruitment would initiate a full stock assessment update with projections to be completed as soon as possible,” ASMFC said. “For the temperature trigger, two out of three consecutive years of winter surface temperature and spring bottom temperature below the 80th percentile of the reference period (1984-2017) would prompt the Section to consider running the winter sampling program without the use of the size-sorting grates.”
