Signs of cod recovery

While gloom surrounds the prospects of many global fisheries, one species seems to have benefited from a range of, often controversial, conservation measures. North Sea cod, once on the brink of collapse as a result of decades of overfishing, looked set for the same fate as cod on the Grand Banks off northeast America, but new evidence suggests numbers are now recovering. In a rare positive conservation success story, the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) told The Independent newspaper last month that the fish were being caught sustainably in the shallow waters to the north and east of Britain for the first time in a decade. Stocks of the fish have increased by 52 per cent from their historic low four years ago because of a combination of cuts in landing quotas and conservation techniques which have reduced the number of caught fish thrown back dead into the sea, the report said. As a result the EU has increased the British quota for North Sea cod by 16 per cent this year, from 11,216 tonnes to 13,000 tonnes. Although stocks are still low by historic standards, the recovery could prompt local sales: at present, most British supermarkets only stock cod labelled as sourced from Iceland or the Barents Sea. Marine scientists said the recovery was evident and welcome, but cautioned that the fish were still only present at a fraction of the levels recorded historically. Overfishing saw the numbers of adult fish capable of spawning fall from an estimated 250,000 tonnes in 1970 to just 35,700 tonnes four years ago. It was then feared the North Sea cod would go the way of the Newfoundland cod which has failed to recover from the collapse 20 years ago. EU fisheries ministers successively cut annual quotas and at the same time Scottish fishermen, who saw the devastation in the catch, began to take conservation more seriously. Twenty-two of Scotland's 122 whitefish boats allowed monitoring cameras on board to prevent them throwing valuable smaller fish overboard, increased the mesh size to avoid catching juveniles and fitted panels to allow cod to escape when they were fishing for other species. The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, which advises the EU, estimates that North Sea cod has risen from 37,400 tonnes in 2007 to 54,250 tonnes this year. But it warns that a population of 70,000-150,000 tonnes is required for a full …