Tag Archives: New England cod

After many years, New England cod seems to be rebounding from overfishing

Atlantic cod, a fish that was foundational to New England’s economy, is being caught at historically low levels. But a research scientist says cod is in the early stages of a comeback. Before Raymond Lees goes fishing, he stops by Reidar’s Trawl Gear in New Bedford, Mass., where he buys custom nets that help him avoid certain types of fish. For commercial fishermen like Lees, cod is known as a choke species, meaning fishermen catch so much of it by accident, they sometimes hit their quota and have to stop fishing for what they really want. But new research from Kevin Stokesbury, a professor of fishery science at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, is challenging that claim. Audio report, >click to listen/read< 15:30