Last of the Portuguese sail fishing fleet, the Gazela harvested cod on the Grand Banks until 1969.
Researchers report that because the largest and fastest-growing fish were harvested, cod have evolved to grow slowly--an adaptation that haunts them to this day.
As Frank Mirarchi, a 69-year-old fisherman who has been harvesting cod and flounder in New England for nearly half a century, put it, "We're gonna lose a bunch of boats".
"I'll be done painting in here soon," says Mirarchi, who has been harvesting cod, flounder and other quarry from the Gulf of Maine and, further out, from the lucrative shallows of Georges Bank for the better part of five decades.
In order to find a place for themselves, cod-farming entrepreneurs must find a way to harvest fresh cod year-round.
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — Fishery management officials meeting here on Wednesday voted to impose drastic new cuts to the commercial harvest of cod along the Atlantic coast, arguing that the only way to save the centuries-old cod fishing industry was to sharply limit it.
Fishermen harvest Pacific Cod with pots, a method with zero by-catch that does no harm to the sea floor.
Once lobster harvesting and cod fishing was reestablished, most fishermen found that the lobster and cod had migrated away from the shores.
"The herring itself was a major harvest, and the cod would follow the herring in to shore".
How does a manager tell the difference between, for example, an illegally harvested Northeast Arctic cod and a perfectly legal Eastern Baltic cod?
