Scientists Surprise Fishermen with Talk of Cod Collapse

[Mr. Sandman]

This fishery should have been completely closed for the last 2 decades and a bounty placed on dogfish to keep their numbers controlled. It astounds me that they allowed fishing even for the big breeders FOR YEARS and YEARS when the stocks were trying to recover.

IMO fishery managers at all levels have got to go. They are being pulled in to many directions in an effort to maintain maximum yield theory of commercial fishing and that is downright dumb thinking...it can not be done accurately with today's technology.

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by Mr. Sandman

This fishery should have been completely closed for the last 2 decades and a bounty placed on dogfish to keep their numbers controlled. It astounds me that they allowed fishing even for the big breeders FOR YEARS and YEARS when the stocks were trying to recover.

IMO fishery managers at all levels have got to go. They are being pulled in to many directions in an effort to maintain maximum yield theory of commercial fishing and that is downright dumb thinking...it can not be done accurately with today's technology.

Maximum Sustainable Yield is a pseudonym for "Total fish we think can be caught before a complete stock collapse occurs."

[MikeToole]

Several of the reports from Canada noted that the tables have been turned up there. The fish that cod eat are now eating so many cod that the cod cannot recover. They believe that herring and other bait fish are eating up most of the cod fry before they have a chance to mature. Many predict that there is a good chance the fishery will never recover.

[RIROCKHOUND]

Originally Posted by MikeToole

Several of the reports from Canada noted that the tables have been turned up there. The fish that cod eat are now eating so many cod that the cod cannot recover. They believe that herring and other bait fish are eating up most of the cod fry before they have a chance to mature. Many predict that there is a good chance the fishery will never recover.

Just substitute Dogfish for Herring down here

[Mr. Sandman]

I predict we will see this headline someday.

[likwid]

Originally Posted by MikeToole

Several of the reports from Canada noted that the tables have been turned up there. The fish that cod eat are now eating so many cod that the cod cannot recover. They believe that herring and other bait fish are eating up most of the cod fry before they have a chance to mature. Many predict that there is a good chance the fishery will never recover.

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Canada collapse in the late 80's early 90's?

[Soundbounder]

Story in yesterday's NYT:

Scientists Say Cod Are Scant; Nets Say Otherwise

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/us...ocks.html?_r=3

Some fishermen say they are seeing more cod in the Gulf of Maine than they have in years. Many in Gloucester have already reached their quota for the fishing year that started in May and are looking to buy the rights to catch more from others who have not yet reached their federal limit. Recreational fishermen, who land more than 30 percent of the total Gulf of Maine cod catch, are reporting similar observations.

“I’m telling you, it’s out there,” said Russell Sherman, who started fishing for cod in 1971 and has just about reached his annual allocation of 25,000 pounds. “We’ve had no problems locating codfish.”

But scientists take more into account than what fishermen see.

“Fishermen will almost always tell you that, and it’s not that they’re lying,” said Mark Kurlansky, whose 1997 book, “Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World,” documented how Canada’s once-abundant Atlantic cod were fished almost to extinction. “Landing a lot of fish can mean the fish are very plentiful, or it can mean the fishermen are extremely efficient in scooping up every last one of them.”

[MikeToole]

Originally Posted by likwid

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Canada collapse in the late 80's early 90's?

The government listed it in 1992.

By 1992, the biomass estimate for northern cod was the lowest ever measured. The Canadian Minister of Fisheries and Oceans had no choice but to declare a ban on fishing northern cod. For the first time in 400 years the fishing of northern cod ceased in Newfoundland. The fisheries department issued a warning in 1995 that the entire northern cod population had declined to just 1,700 tonnes by the end of 1994, down from a 1990 biomass survey showing 400,000 tonnes, and showed no sign of recovery - just 1700 tonnes remained in a fishery that had for over a century yielded a quarter-million ton catches, year after year. The fisheries department also predicted that, even in the unlikely event that the fish stock started an immediate recovery, it would take at least 15 years before it would be healthy enough to withstand significant fishing.