High fuel costs and the rising dollar may have given unlikely protection to one of Canada’s least sustainable fisheries – the longspine thornyhead, or idiot fish. But it's not enough.

DSF has called for an immediate moratorium on the fishing of the longspine thornyhead. And our fisheries expert, Scott Wallace, knows all there is to know about this fascinating species.

The longspine thornyhead is called the “idiot fish” in industry circles, but truth be told this groundfish is a biological genius. It has carved out an existence one kilometre under the sea in one of the earth’s least livable environments, where water pressure is extreme and little oxygen, food, or sunlight can be found. The longspine thornyhead can survive the pressure of the deep ocean but whether it will be able to survive the pressure of human activity is another question.

Beginning in 1996, Fisheries and Oceans Canada endorsed a deep-sea bottom-trawl fishery for this species with virtually no information about its abundance or life history. Most of the catch of this species, 86 per cent, is taken from the continental shelf off the west coast of Vancouver Island by boats dragging massive trawl nets across the ocean floor. Now, about 94 per cent of the seafloor in the depth range of 500 to1,200 metres in this area has been trawled.

Research shows that populations of the fish may have declined by 50 to 60 per cent between 1996 and 2004. In 2007, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada designated the longspine thornyhead as “special concern”. The declines and the COSEWIC designation, along with the known destructive impacts of bottom trawling, should have led to a closure of the fishery. Instead, it continues with no change in fishing practices.

Want to do something about it? Click here!