If Canada and other fishing nations minimize the unintentional catches of cod then its sticks could rebuild. What is need is a developed recovery plan. The World Wildlife Fund issued new hope for the beleaguered species on the southern Grand Banks, saying the stock has been inching its way back over the last several years after collapsing in the early 1990s.
According to WWF the struggling stocks of cod could recover only if Canada and member nations of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization enact several conservation measures to help the stock rebuild. Bob Rangeley, the Atlantic vice-president of WWF-Canada, said reducing the amount of bycatch, or fish that are caught unintentionally, is central to bringing the species back.
Rangeley said hundreds of tonnes of cod, which are protected under a moratorium introduced in July 1992, are still caught every year by boats fishing for other species. this practice depletes the stock of young fish and has helped keep the stock size to just 10 percent of what it was in the 1960s. Shelley Dwyer, the fund’s fisheries conservation adviser, said the organization needs to do a better job of making sure targets for reducing bycatch are adhered to by its 12 members.
WWF told that a growing push by consumers and industry to buy only sustainably caught seafood might persuade the fisheries organization to adopt more stringent protections.
The group also wants to see the organization to protect what they call vulnerable marine ecosystems, or habitats that are home to fragile species like corals, sponges and deep-sea fish that take decades to mature.
