September 26, 2012 — In Britain, as is the case here, fisheries scientists have their hands full trying to tell what the ocean warming is causing. Here, yellowtail flounder may be migrating away from warm spots during the winter, which may be why NOAA can't seem to find them. Shellfish may be in decline because of acidity caused by increasing carbon dioxide levels. It goes on and on, and scapegoating the fishermen is not going to put Mother Nature into reverse.
"The Shocking News About Cod" was the breathless editorial page headline in The New York Times on Monday.
What was the news?
In the North Sea, cod stocks are so depleted that there were only 600 12-to-13-year-old cod caught during all of last year, and not one over 13. No more than 100 mature cod are thought to be left in the North Sea. Truly shocking, no?
And since older fish are the biggest producer of eggs, the whole fishery is circling the drain, goes the tale. Proposed shallow cutbacks might not be enough to rescue the fishery but instead would merely protect the greedy fishermen.
This sure sounds familiar to anyone dealing with the New England fishery, but is it on the mark? Was the London Sunday Times, where this story originated, on the money?
Well, as it happens, no.
Great Britain's Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs wasted no time in calling the story a "myth."
"This is completely wrong," the department said in a "Myth Bust" that's a lot harder to find online than the "100 cod left" story.
"In fact, we know there to be around 21 million mature cod in the North Sea." It went on to explain that cod start to mature at around 1 year and are fully mature at age 6. That's mature as in able to reproduce.
"There are a small number of cod over the age of 12 years old, which has always been the case in the North Sea even when fished at lower levels in the 1950s and 1960s.
Cod older than 15 have rarely been recorded in the North Sea," said the department.
What an inconvenient fact. Britain's fishing industry group, the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations, shot back that for the past six years, cod biomass has been increasing steadily and is on its way back to health, and the paper knows it. The group accused the Times of waging a calculated and misleading attack on the fishing industry rather than telling the less eye-grabbing straight story.
Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard Times