“We’ve seen what I would consider some pretty remarkable improvements in stock status in New England groundfish in 10 years,” said Tom Nies, groundfish fishery analyst for the New England Fishery Management Council. “I don’t want to sugar-coat them. We still have a ways to go. But when you look at the biomass trajectories since 1994 for all of the stocks in the groundfish plan, they’re almost all on an upward trend.
"Whether that’s the result of good management — that’s what we’d like to believe — or the result of blind luck, because of something in the environment, it’s a pretty dramatic turnaround.”
That’s encouraging.
Yet, there’s one major exception: Georges Bank cod. Despite fishing cuts over the last 16 years or so, the Georges Bank cod is not bouncing back and is at 10 percent of fishery managers’ target. Stock sizes are still quite low and the status is still overfished with overfishing happening, per the last federal stock assessment, conducted in 2007.
So what’s going on with Georges Bank cod?
There are several factors, say federal scientists. One is that the ecosystem in the last 15 years has seen a strong build-up of herring and mackerel, fish that can prey on cod egg and larvae.
Read the complete editorial at Seafood Source.