Thanks to a 70-year old trawling ban, cod fishing in the sound between Sweden and Denmark could now be counted as 100 times more productive than in neighbouring Kattegat, a new Swedish study shows.
With an annual outtake of some 2,500 tonnes in Öresund, cod catches in the ten times larger Kattegat has dwindled to 200 tonnes. Even though TACs for the Kattegat have been reduced and protected areas have been introduced in recent years, those measures have not been enough, according to the report, written by Henrik Svedäng at the Swedish Institute for the Marine Environment in Gothenburg.
Although the scientific advice for cod fishing in the Kattegat has been no fishing at all for nine straight years, the EU Council has every year allowed some.
