Tag Archives: Northwest Atlantic
The cod delusion – A moratorium on cod fishing that was supposed to last two years has now lasted 30.
Three decades on, the latest DFO science still puts Atlantic cod in the critical zone. “I hope politicians and bureaucrats in Ottawa have learned something, because I’ve learned something: the moratorium was the biggest catastrophe ever heaped on the people in this province, ever. Nothing has been as bad as this,” says Captain Saunders, an 80-year-old Inuk. Seated in the wheelhouse of his longliner, docked in Pinsent’s Arm in late September 2021, Saunders speaks with the authority of someone with six decades of fishing experience, backed by centuries of hindsight. “Newfoundland and Labrador people fished for 500 years and didn’t damage the stocks. What Canada done was an atrocity in my opinion. It ruined a way of life. It ruined culture. All the stages, stage heads, they’re all falling apart, they’re all deteriorated — that’s the government did that.” >click to read< 17:40
Call for Increased Seal Hunt as Population Surges
Hungry East Coast seal populations have surged in recent decades, spurring calls for an increased seal hunt — and even a possible cull — to protect fragile caplin and northern cod stocks. The Northwest Atlantic harp seal population is estimated at about 7.4 million animals — almost six times what it was in the 1970s, according to the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Grey seal numbers in the Gulf of St. Lawrence have grown from about 5,000 animals in 1960 to an estimated 98,000 in 2014, according to the department. >click to read<16:04
Uninformed vs. Science: The story of swordfish in the Northwest Atlantic is complex and subject to many versions of revisionist histories.
Every once in a while you read something that is so wrong, it sticks with you. A recent statement by the American Sportfish Association, (ASA), published in the Fishing Wire, met and exceeded the mark of just plain wrong. And to compound the affront, several marginalized groups threw in their support for good measure. I know better than to bark at the moon but here goes,,,Uninformed vs. Science. By Edward Gaw >click to read< 14:53
Cod aren’t coming back — yet
Chronical Herald – The baldheaded buffoon of the popular cartoon (The Simpsons) could have been talking about the Northwest Atlantic. The accusations that followed the destruction of the world’s greatest wild food resource were on land. Some blamed foreign draggers for the 1993 cod moratorium, others blamed politicians, some blamed scientists and a few took a long hard look at ourselves. Popular predictions that cod would rebound without fishing pressure turned out to be wrong. Replacing cod as a dominant species have been seals and bottom feeders — Homer’s tasty crustaceans. Populations of commercially valuable lobster and crab have skyrocketed. continued
