Little hope for northern cod stock recovery

HALIFAX — Hopes have been dashed for a recovery of the once mighty northern cod stock off Newfoundland, a leading conservation group says.

Three years after scientists confirmed there were signs of a comeback and catch limits were increased, the federal government decided this week to reduce the limit. Ottawa cited a spring stock assessment that found the cod population had declined 30 per cent after seven years of rebuilding.

However, Oceana Canada says the 9,600-tonne catch limit announced Tuesday – a 25-percent reduction when compared with last year – is still too high.

“There were some fragile signs of recovery,” said Robert Rangeley, a marine biologist and science director for Oceana Canada. “All those hopes were dashed in the assessment this spring.”

Northern cod were once the backbone of Newfoundland and Labrador’s 400-year-old fishing industry. But the population collapsed in the early 1990s because of overfishing, mismanagement and changing environmental conditions.

A fishing moratorium imposed in 1992, which was eventually extended to other groundfish stocks, wiped out more than 30,000 jobs.

It was the largest mass layoff in Canadian history.

Within a year, the entire $700-million enterprise – and way of life – was gone.

But there were initial signs of recovery in 2012, and by 2015 the catch limits started to increase – that year’s limit was 4,400 tonnes, less than half of what it is now.

Rangeley said the biomass of the northern cod population is now estimated at around the same levels as in 1992.

“The projections for next year are no better (because) this stock isn’t growing,” he said.

“It’s well under the critical zone... It’s pretty scary.”

The province’s largest fishermen’s union is arguing that the new catch limit amounts to a “dramatic reduction” that will hurt coastal communities that rely on the fishery as a key source of income.

Keith Sullivan, president of the Fish, Food and Allied Workers union, said the March stock assessment had concluded the fishery was having no impact on the trajectory of the stock.

The union said the latest research indicates the population decline can be mainly attributed to natural mortality and not fishing pressure.