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Figure 3.4. Collapse of Atlantic Cod Stocks Off the East Coast of Newfoundland in 1992"This collapse forced the closure of the fishery after hundreds of years of exploitation. Until the late 1950s, the fishery was exploited by migratory seasonal fleets and resident inshore small-scale fishers. From the late 1950s, offshore bottom trawlers began exploiting the deeper part of the stock, leading to a large catch increase and a strong decline in the underlying biomass. Internationally agreed quotas in the early 1970s and, following the declaration by Canada of an Exclusive Fishing Zone in 1977, national quota systems ultimately failed to arrest and reverse the decline. The stock collapsed to extremely low levels in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and a moratorium on commercial fishing was declared in June 1992. A small commercial inshore fishery was reintroduced in 1998, but catch rates declined and the fishery was closed indefinitely in 2003."  Source:
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment |
