The hook‐and‐line fishery for inshore rockfishes Sebastes spp. in British Columbia is diverse, with participants in directed commercial, recreational, and Aboriginal fisheries, as well as other incidental fisheries coastwide. Rockfish species targeted in this fishery are yelloweye rockfish S. ruberrimus and quillback rockfish S. maliger. Expansion of the fishery outpaced management's effort controls, and catch quotas were implemented in the early 1990s. Conservation concerns largely based on life history traits resulted in restrictions to the directed fishery, but other fisheries remained unmanaged. A growing mismatch between the demands of fishery management and the difficulties of inshore rockfish stock assessment led to the development of a conservation strategy in 2001. The strategy included the following four components: comprehensive catch monitoring; dramatically reduced fishing mortality; extensive fishery closed areas; and improved stock assessment and monitoring. Targets were met in 2002 by reducing the fishing mortality rate by 75% in the protected waters east of Vancouver Island (inside area) and by 50% in the remaining open‐coast waters (outside area). Research survey programs were reinstated by the provision of funds in 2003. An intricate catch accounting and monitoring proposal from industry set the rules in a pilot groundfish licensing integration program launched in 2006. Progress continues to be made on this difficult task. Areas closed to all fishing were implemented in 30% of the rockfish habitats throughout the inside area and in 20% of the outside area in 2007. Key to the development of the strategy was the consultation process. Consensus‐based decision making within the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the organization and commitment of industry participants contributed to this success. Open communication and respectful conduct brought participants to the table and kept them engaged. Without the consultation process and the benefits from this exchange, the conservation strategy would not have been possible.

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a b s t r a c tBetween 2004 and 2007, Fisheries and Oceans Canada undertook a management action to conserve overfished populations of Inshore Rockfishes by designating 164 Rockfish Conservation Areas (RCAs) closed to most recreational and commercial fishing. However, no research has yet assessed the effectiveness of the RCA network at promoting groundfish population recoveries. We surveyed the fish communities of 35 RCAs and adjacent unprotected areas in southern British Columbia using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) between 2009 and 2011. We investigated the effect of protection and habitat on fish densities for six species or species groups (Quillback, Yelloweye, Greenstriped Rockfish, Kelp Greenling, Lingcod and all Inshore Rockfish combined) on transects inside and outside of RCAs. Habitat features such as percent rocky substrates and depth influenced fish density while reserve status did not. Next, we calculated habitat-based average densities and used the mean log response ratio (RR) of the density inside to outside of RCAs to determine if the amount of fishing outside the RCA, previous fishing history, the age, area or perimeter to area ratio influenced population recovery. Few positive reserve effects were apparent for any species/group. No clear patterns of RR with age were found for the RCAs, which ranged from 3 to 7 years old at the time of sampling (mean = 4.6). In addition, the intensity of fishing, size, and perimeter-to-area ratio failed to explain RR for most species. There were also no differences in size structure (length) of fish between RCAs and unprotected areas. The results give little indication that demersal fish populations have recovered inside the RCA system. Ongoing monitoring is essential to assess population recovery over time and evaluate the RCAs in terms of criteria such as habitat quality, habitat isolation and the level of compliance in order to enhance their effectiveness.Crown

The boundaries between oceanographic domains often function as dispersal barriers for many temperate marine species with a dispersive pelagic larval phase. Yelloweye rockfish (Sebastes ruberrimus, YR) are widely distributed across the northeastern Pacific Ocean, inhabiting coastal rocky reefs from the Aleutian Islands in Alaska through southern California. This species exhibits an extended pelagic larval duration and has the capacity for long distance larval transport. We assayed 2,862 YR individuals from 13 general areas in the northeast Pacific Ocean for allelic variation at nine microsatellite loci. Bayesian model-based clustering analyses grouped individuals from the Strait of Georgia (SG) into a distinct genetic cluster, while individuals from outer coastal water locations (OCLs) were partitioned equally across two genetic clusters, including the cluster associated with the SG fish. Pairwise FST values were consistently an order of magnitude higher for comparisons between the SG and OCLs than they were for all OCL-OCL comparisons (∼0.016 vs. ∼0.001). This same pattern was observed across two time points when individuals were binned into an “old” and “young” group according to birth year (old: ∼0.020 vs. 0.0003; young: ∼0.020 vs. ∼0.004). Additionally, mean allelic richness was markedly lower within the SG compared to the OCLs (8.00 vs. 10.54–11.77). These results indicate that the Strait of Georgia “deep-basin” estuary oceanographic domain acts as a dispersal barrier from the outer coastal waters via the Juan de Fuca Strait. Alternatively, selection against maladapted dispersers across this oceanographic transition may underlie the observed genetic differentiation between the Georgia basin and the outer coastal waters, and further work is needed to confirm the SG-OCL divide acts as a barrier to larval dispersal.