What you probably didn’t get was a good explanation of why the two assessments were so different. Have cod stocks really evaporated in the past three years? Or was one of the assessments in error? And, if so, which one? A few articles referred to the fact that there were differences in the data and computer model used. But the details I crave were sorely lacking.
There’s actually some good news to be found in the 2011 assessment. Both Brooks and Palmer are of the professional opinion that the actual status of the cod stock has not changed dramatically over the past three years, and that it definitely hasn’t crashed. In fact, they think it has been slowly rebuilding over the past several years – the latest three included.
Yep, you read that right. Gulf of Maine cod is rebuilding, recovering from decades (if not centuries) of overfishing. It’s been doing that steadily for several years. That’s the good news.
But, and this is a big BUT, it’s doing it a lot more slowly than the 2008 numbers suggested … so slowly that there’s no way Gulf of Maine cod will make it all the way to an official designation of “rebuilt” by 2014, a target date suggested by the federal legislation that mandates fisheries management. That’s the bad news, and the reason that fishermen are worried. Federal mandates to end overfishing as soon as it’s detected and rebuild fish stocks as quickly as possible could drive regulators to severely cut back cod fishing quotas. The idea of shutting down the Gulf of Maine cod fishery even surfaced.
Read the complete story from Climatide