Jessica Edwards

My degrees
BSc Biology,  University of Victoria

What I am now
MSc Student

Email: jesse@sfu.ca

Twitter: @sciforthepeople https://twitter.com/sciforthepeople

 

My research

The gooseneck barnacle (Pollicipes polymerus) fishery on the west coast of Vancouver Island is co-managed and community driven. The gooseneck barnacle or ca̓ʔinwa, is a traditional food source for the Nuu-chah-nulth peoples and this commercial fishery is exclusively First Nations and is co-managed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) and T’aaq-wiihak Fisheries Management (TFM), a collective of five Nuu-chah-nulth Nations (Gagne et al. 2016). Currently, this is a small-scale sustainable fishery, but it is limited in quota and fishing area, and this makes it inaccessible to some of the member Nations. The goal of management is to expand this fishery, but important information is lacking on mortality, recruitment, and post-harvest regeneration.

My research will work to better understand the ecology and sustainability of the commercial gooseneck barnacle fishery on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Specifically, I will ask two questions: (1) How does recruitment, mortality, and plot size affect the recovery of harvest patches? (2) Are there solutions for longer-term storage of this resource? These data will be used to help our project partners with their goal to expand the commercial gooseneck barnacle fishery on the west coast of Vancouver Island.