Canada’s federal government announced Thursday a proposal to add 11 aquatic species — including the porbeagle shark, two populations of spiny dogfish, and multiple skate species — to the formal list of species protected under federal law, a step that has been delayed for more than two decades by what the government’s own auditor documented as a systematic bias against protecting commercially valuable fish. The DFO species listing proposal was made by Minister of Fisheries Joanne Thompson, opening a 30-day public comment period before the Governor in Council makes a final listing decision. Formal publication in the Canada Gazette, Part I is expected on October 10, 2026.

Two Decades of Delay — and a Reckoning

The Porbeagle (Lamna nasus), a cold-water shark native to the Northwest Atlantic, was designated Endangered by Canada’s Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) in May 2004. That designation was independently confirmed by COSEWIC in May 2014. For more than two decades, neither assessment translated into legal protection under the Species at Risk Act (SARA). The reason, documented in a 2006 federal order against listing, was explicitly economic: the government concluded at the time that SARA listing would eliminate the directed porbeagle fishery and prohibit trade in incidentally caught sharks, and chose not to list.

That pattern was not unique to the Porbeagle. In October 2022, Commissioner of Environment and Sustainable Development Jerry V. DeMarco tabled a formal audit of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) that found the department had avoided listing commercially valuable marine fish species in every case examined. Of the species DeMarco’s team looked at, all five with significant commercial value were recommended against listing by DFO, while all seven without commercial value were recommended for protection.

DeMarco’s October 2022 audit media release quoted him as saying: “A bias against protecting species of commercial value under the Species at Risk Act, significant delays in listing species for protection, gaps in knowledge about species, and limited enforcement capacity all have adverse effects on ecosystems and communities.”

The audit also found that DFO had not provided listing advice for half of the 230-plus aquatic species assessed as at-risk since SARA came fully into force in 2004.

Thursday’s proposed order — which covers 11 new additions and four reclassifications — is the most significant proposed SARA listing of commercially valuable marine fish since that audit was published.

What the Law Actually Does When a Species Is Listed

The Species at Risk Act, which received Royal Assent on December 12, 2002, provides a legal framework for the management, protection, and recovery of wildlife species. For aquatic species listed as endangered, the law’s consequences are immediate and binding: it becomes a federal offence to kill, harm, harass, capture, or take any individual of the listed species. Destroying critical habitat is also prohibited.

For threatened or extirpated species, the same prohibitions apply. Recovery strategies must be produced within one year of listing for endangered species, and within two years for threatened or extirpated species, per DFO’s SARA listing policy directive. Those strategies must identify population objectives and what will need to be done to stop or reverse declines.

Species designated as “special concern” — a lower risk category — are not subject to the automatic prohibitions, but are entitled to a management plan and dedicated program funding.

Before Thursday’s announcement, none of the 11 species proposed for addition held Schedule 1 status. Their protection came only through the Fisheries Act, which DFO had long argued was sufficient — an argument that independent auditors consistently disputed.

Why Bycatch Is the Central Science Problem — and Why It Wasn’t Being Measured

The Porbeagle’s directed commercial fishery in Canada was suspended in 2013. That did not end fishing mortality; it simply changed its form. Porbeagle continue to be caught as bycatch — incidentally, in fisheries targeting other species — in Atlantic longline operations and groundfish mobile gear fisheries.

The critical scientific problem is that DFO’s own researchers have acknowledged they cannot reliably measure how many Porbeagle are dying in those fisheries. A 2024 DFO Science research document (Bowlby et al., Research Document 2024/060) found that when at-sea observer (ASO) coverage in a fishery was below 5% of trips annually, observed bycatch discards “substantially underestimated fishery-wide totals.” Several relevant fisheries had no observer coverage at all. The document concluded: “It is not possible to derive meaningful estimates of total annual fishing mortality of Porbeagle throughout Atlantic Canadian waters.”

This is the precise engineering gap that SARA listing is intended to remedy: a listed endangered species must have a recovery strategy that includes monitoring obligations and, if necessary, bycatch permits demonstrating that incidental take is not jeopardizing survival or recovery. Without a SARA listing, that accountability framework does not exist.

DFO’s own science has established that fishing mortality must remain below approximately 4% of vulnerable biomass — roughly 185 metric tons per year — for the Porbeagle population to recover, according to the 2024 Science Advisory Report. Without adequate observer coverage, the department cannot verify whether that threshold is being met.

The Biology That Explains Why Delay Costs So Much

The Porbeagle and spiny dogfish share a life-history strategy that makes listing delays particularly costly: both are K-strategists, meaning they reproduce slowly in exchange for long lifespans. According to the COSEWIC 2014 porbeagle status report, the Porbeagle reaches sexual maturity at roughly 8 to 10 years, produces a litter of one to five pups after an approximately 8.5-month gestation, and has a maximum intrinsic rate of population increase of roughly 5% per year in an unfished state. Recovery under reduced fishing pressure has been estimated at approximately 2.5% per year.

The scale of the population collapse helps explain why listing was urgent even two decades ago. By 2009, the Porbeagle population in the Northwest Atlantic had fallen to approximately 25% of its 1961 virgin biomass level, with female spawner abundance at roughly 14% of its 1961 level — a metric that matters because reproductive output tracks breeding females more directly than total population size.

“Overfishing is the only known cause of their decline, and the only impediment to their recovery,” the 2015 Recovery Potential Assessment concluded.

The North Pacific Spiny Dogfish (Squalus suckleyi) and Atlantic Spiny Dogfish (Squalus acanthias), both included in Thursday’s proposal, face similar vulnerability. The two species were long classified as one until genetic and morphological research established them as distinct — a finding relevant to conservation because they occupy different ocean basins with different fisheries pressures. This species distinction is documented on the Oceana Canada spiny dogfish page. Both populations were assessed as special concern by COSEWIC. Globally, overfishing is considered the only proximate threat to Spiny Dogfish at a population level, according to the COSEWIC 2010 spiny dogfish report.

Minister Thompson’s Digital Modernization Agenda — and What It Could Fix

The listing process’s scientific gap — insufficient observer coverage to measure bycatch mortality — sits at the intersection of this week’s conservation announcement and another initiative DFO has been advancing under Minister Thompson’s leadership: digital modernization.

The Budget 2025 DFO savings target explicitly directs DFO to “leverage artificial intelligence and other digital tools to modernize Canada’s fisheries management system” in meeting a 15% operational savings goal over three years. DFO has since published an AI strategy for fisheries management that includes AI-assisted fisheries monitoring and improvements to predictive ocean models. In 2025, DFO introduced electronic logbooks (e-logbooks) for commercial fishers — a change the Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union (FFAW-Unifor) criticized as imposing technology costs on harvesters in areas with limited internet or cellular connectivity, according to FFAW-Unifor’s e-log criticism.

The tension is real: the same administrative infrastructure needed to close the bycatch monitoring gap (better data coverage, electronic reporting, real-time observer tracking) is the same infrastructure whose rollout to independent fishers is creating friction with fishing communities. For species newly listed under SARA, resolving that monitoring gap is not optional — it is a legal requirement for any bycatch permit issued under SARA.

The Full List of Proposed Additions

Under Thursday’s proposal, 11 species would be added to Schedule 1 of SARA as either endangered, threatened, or of special concern: the Porbeagle; Darkblotched Rockfish; North Pacific Spiny Dogfish; two populations of Winter Skate (Eastern Scotian Shelf–Newfoundland population and Gulf of St. Lawrence population); Smooth Skate (Laurentian-Scotian population); Basking Shark (Atlantic population); Atlantic Spiny Dogfish; River Darter (Great Lakes–Upper St. Lawrence populations); and both species of Little Quarry Lake Threespine Stickleback. This complete species list was published in Thursday’s DFO news release.

The proposed order would also reclassify four species already on Schedule 1: Warmouth would move from special concern to endangered; Coastrange Sculpin (Cultus Lake population) from threatened to endangered; and the Rocky Mountain Sculpin (Eastslope Populations) would be split into two new designatable units — the Missouri River populations and the Saskatchewan–Nelson River populations. These DFO Schedule 1 reclassifications are also detailed in Thursday’s announcement.

A Closer Look: Darkblotched Rockfish and Winter Skate

Darkblotched Rockfish (Sebastes crameri) inhabits Pacific waters off British Columbia. It is a long-lived species with a maximum documented age of approximately 100 years, making it among the most lifespan-vulnerable fish species in Canadian waters, according to the COSEWIC darkblotched rockfish assessment. The species is taken at low levels in fisheries targeting more commercially valuable rockfish species — which means its population trends are tracked poorly by commercial fisheries data, and its decline can be invisible until it becomes severe. In adjacent U.S. waters, the Darkblotched Rockfish population declined approximately 84% between 1928 and 1999 before being recognized as overfished.

Winter Skate (Leucoraja ocellata) appears twice in the proposal — reflecting two geographically separate populations that face distinct fishing pressures. The Gulf of St. Lawrence population was assessed by COSEWIC as endangered. There is no directed fishery targeting Gulf of St. Lawrence Winter Skate, but bycatch remains the key management challenge: they are encountered as incidental catch in commercial groundfish trawl operations throughout their range, as documented in the DFO Winter Skate consultation.

What Fishers Need to Know

For commercial and recreational fishers, a SARA listing of an endangered species has immediate regulatory consequences if formally finalized: all activities that could kill, harm, harass, capture, or take an individual of the listed species would require either a permit or a formal exemption under the Species at Risk Act text. DFO reviews qualifying fishing activities and may issue permits that set specific bycatch limits and observer requirements — but only if it determines that the level of incidental harm will not jeopardize the survival or recovery of the listed species.

Fishers in Atlantic longline and groundfish mobile gear fisheries are most directly affected by a Porbeagle listing, given that those fisheries are the primary remaining source of Porbeagle fishing mortality since the directed fishery’s 2013 suspension. The 30-day comment period that began with the DFO October 2026 proposal is the formal opportunity for fishing communities, Indigenous groups, provinces, and territories to provide input before the Governor in Council acts.

Species listed as special concern — including the two Spiny Dogfish populations under Thursday’s proposal — are not subject to the automatic prohibitions that apply to endangered and threatened species. They instead trigger a mandatory management plan and dedicated program funding, but do not prohibit fishing activities unless a management plan subsequently establishes limits.

What Happens If the Governor in Council Acts

The SARA listing process does not end with today’s announcement. Following the 30-day public comment period, the Minister of Environment, Climate Change and Nature (who has overall SARA responsibility) will make a recommendation to the Governor in Council, which makes the final listing decision. For Porbeagle, that decision will involve weighing COSEWIC’s 22-year-old endangered designation, the 2024 science confirming ongoing bycatch mortality that cannot be reliably quantified, the 2022 Commissioner’s audit that documented the bias that prevented listing for two decades, and the socioeconomic interests of Atlantic fishing communities.

If the Governor in Council formally approves the listing, a recovery strategy for the Porbeagle must be completed and posted to the SARA Public Registry within one year, per the DFO SARA listing policy directive. For Smooth Skate and the two Winter Skate populations — also assessed as endangered — the same one-year clock applies.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why has the Porbeagle shark not been listed under Canada’s Species at Risk Act before, despite being designated Endangered in 2004?

The SARA listing process has two steps: a scientific assessment by COSEWIC, and a political/economic decision by the Governor in Council on whether to formally list the species. The Porbeagle received its COSEWIC Endangered designation in 2004, but the government chose not to list it, citing economic losses to the directed fishery and risks to bycatch fisheries. In 2022, a formal audit by the Commissioner of Environment and Sustainable Development documented this as a pattern of systematic bias against listing commercially valuable marine fish — in every case the audit examined, species with significant commercial value were recommended against listing by DFO, while species without commercial value received protection.

What happens to commercial fishers who catch porbeagle as bycatch after a formal SARA listing?

Fishing activities that could incidentally catch a SARA-listed endangered species do not automatically become illegal, but they require either a formal exemption or a permit. DFO evaluates permit applications by assessing whether the level of incidental bycatch would jeopardize the species’ survival or recovery. If approved, the permit specifies bycatch limits, may require observer coverage, and is time-limited. The critical challenge — acknowledged in DFO’s own 2024 research document — is that accurate bycatch monitoring currently does not exist for Porbeagle in many Atlantic fisheries, which means any permit framework will need to include new monitoring requirements.

What is the difference between a COSEWIC Endangered designation and a SARA Schedule 1 listing, and why does it matter?

COSEWIC’s designation is a scientific finding: an independent committee of wildlife experts determined that the species faces a high risk of extinction in Canada. It is advisory. A SARA Schedule 1 listing is a legal act: it converts that scientific finding into binding federal law, immediately activating prohibitions against killing, harming, harassing, or capturing the species, and triggering a mandatory recovery strategy. A species can be designated Endangered by COSEWIC and receive no legal protection for decades — as the Porbeagle demonstrates — if the Government of Canada chooses not to act on the scientific advice.

Does spiny dogfish in Atlantic Canada face the same restrictions as the Porbeagle under this proposal?

No. The Atlantic Spiny Dogfish and North Pacific Spiny Dogfish are proposed for listing as “special concern” — a lower risk category that does not trigger the automatic prohibitions that apply to endangered or threatened species. A “special concern” listing requires DFO to develop a SARA-compliant management plan, which could include setting sustainable quotas, requiring increased observer coverage, and addressing knowledge gaps. It does not prohibit fishing activities unless a subsequent management plan establishes restrictions. Conservation organizations have long criticized the lower listing threshold for spiny dogfish given that overfishing is acknowledged as the only proximate population threat globally.