Setting the record straight on mature North Sea cod
19 September 2012
An article in last weekend's Sunday Times (16 September
2012) incorrectly claimed that "fewer than 100 mature cod are left
in the North Sea". Such a statement is wrong even though the cod
stock does remain severely depleted.
The briefing Cefas gave the Sunday Times journalist
about the recovering North Sea cod stock and the positive news
about haddock, saithe and plaice at high stock sizes and reasonable
levels of exploitation (fishing) were omitted in the final
article.
Cefas and other European scientific institutions work together
at the International
Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) to monitor and
assess the biomass (tonnage) of North Sea cod and other commercial
species.
For North Sea cod, it is correct that the international fishing
rate (mortality) has been high since the 1980s, and has shown a
decline since 2000. The number of young cod (recruitment) has been
low since 1987, and even lower since 1998, causing serious
concern.
The
latest ICES' assessment shows that there has been a gradual
improvement in the status of the stock over the last few years. The
amount of mature fish (spawning stock biomass) has increased from
the historical low in 2006 and shows signs of further
improvement.
This has been achieved through the collaboration of fishermen
and scientists working together to gain better and more robust
scientific evidence upon which to make fisheries management
decisions.
The Fisheries Science
Partnership and discard-reduction programmes like Project 50%,
alongside catch-quota
trials run in collaboration with the Marine Management
Organisation, have done much to help inform the scientific
evidence base and to deliver more sustainable fisheries.
Confusion was inevitable when the Sunday Times
attempted to condense complex fish stock information on the back of
their request for a briefing about the New Economics Foundation's
latest report (see http://www.neweconomics.org/nocatchinvestment).