At a meeting in Vigo, Spain, governments have rejected a simple measure that might have given the cod a fighting chance. Since 1992 the fishing of cod has been banned on the banks as overfishing destroyed the stocks. In spite of that the cod have shown no signs of recovery. This was initially blamed on subtle, permanent changes to the ecosystem.
In recent years it is found that another reason for declining stocks has emerged-the few young cod still being spawned are being swept up in nets intended for other fish before they can spawn themselves. It is told that on average some 1500 tonnes of three-year-old cod are destroyed as by-catch in this way on the southern banks every year. Two-thirds of this is caught outside Canadian waters, where fishing is managed internationally by the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organisation (NAFO).
NAFO announced a 40 percent cut in cod by-catch in 2008. Robert Rangeley, a fisheries scientist working for the conservation group WWF, told that the data so far this year suggest that target has already been caught – and there are three months of fishing left to go. This could be because the number of babies spawned by adult cod each year varies widely for reasons scientists do not yet understand. He said that if they were left to grow up, they could become the nucleus of a real recovery.
