Atlantic cod: the cod-forsaken island.

They came from England and Ireland and settled on the southern coast of Labrador and the east coast of the island of Newfoundland. These first immigrants to Newfoundland were entirely dependent on the Atlantic Cod.

Early each summer, the cod migrated from their feeding and breeding grounds on the Grand Banks. As the fish moved inshore, the fishers were ready. They fished daily from small boats with hook and line, and returned to shore each evening. Ashore, they salted and dried the cod to preserve them.

An offshore fishery also thrived. Boats from France, Spain, Portugal, and England fished the Grand Banks. Usually, these boats took their catches back to Europe for processing.

Newfoundlanders were mainly involved in an inshore fishery. They used small boats, called dories, and kept close to shore. A variety of techniques were used to catch cod, such as traps, small trawl nets, or baited hooks.

About the middle of the 19th century the cod fishery started to change. Fishing gear began to improve and the fishing boats got bigger. The catches began to increase and so did the number of vessels. Many nations began to realize that the oceans offered a cheaper source of protein than anything that could be coaxed out of the land. And, the cod fishery off Newfoundland's coast was one of the richest fishing grounds anywhere.

In March 1954, a ship called the Fairtry was launched in Scotland. This was the first factory freezer trawler and marked a huge leap forward in fishing technology. The Fairtry was sent off to the Grand Banks to begin scooping up enormous quantities of cod. The vessel had nets that could be hauled in over its stern, which made her more efficient than the traditional side-net trawlers. She could fish in bad weather and good. She was equipped with a quick-freezing plant, automatic filleting machines, and cold storage. The Fairtry was the shape of things to come.

The factory ships got bigger and more numerous. Soon, electronic equipment was helping locate schools of fish; captains could now "see" exactly where the fish were and drop their nets right in the middle of them. The size of the catch was growing: 300,000 tonnes a year became 600,000 tonnes a year. By the early 1980s, the Atlantic groundfish industry was landing 775,000 tonnes a year.

All nations with a coastline had, by international agreement, jurisdiction over the ocean extending 12 miles (19.3 km) out to sea. This protected Canada's inshore fishery from foreign competition, but fleets from distant countries were still vacuuming huge quantities of fish from the Grand Banks. In 1976, Canada extended its control of economic activity, including fishing, out to 200 miles (322 km). This pushed the foreign fleets away from the richest fishing areas off Canada's east coast. However, big Canadian stern-trawlers, known as draggers, soon moved in to continue the exploitation of the groundfish resource.

As early as the middle of the 18th century, some people had realized that there were limits to the number of fish that could be caught in any given area. Before the mid-1980s, Newfoundland's inshore fishers were noticing a drop in their catches. They started to warn that the offshore draggers were depleting the stocks too quickly, but nobody took much notice of them. The majority of people in the industry behaved as if there were no limits. And, they were encouraged in this behaviour by their governments who subsidized fishing industries everywhere. Instead of giving the severely stressed cod and other ground fish populations a rest from fishing pressure, Ottawa began freely issuing licenses, and subsidies were provided big companies to build bigger ships and processing plants.

Here's what The Economist wrote in 1994: "Japan, Norway, and the former Soviet Union, among others have poured money into the industry. The European Union increased fishing support from $80 million in 1983 to $580 million in 1990. One-fifth of that went to build new boats or to improve old ones ... Instead of protecting scarce resources, governments subsidize their destruction."

And the destruction of the Atlantic cod was almost total. Between 1990 and 1994, the Atlantic cod stocks off Canada's East Coast plummeted by 95%.

The first reaction to this calamity was to close the Atlantic cod fishery in 1992. Soon, bans were extended to other species of groundfish as their numbers went into decline also.

The plan was to keep the fishery closed, watch the stocks closely, and then re-open the fishery once the stocks had recovered. The problem is the Atlantic groundfish stocks have not recovered.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) issued a warning in 1995 that the entire Atlantic cod population had declined to just 1,700 tonnes by the end of 1994. This was a dramatic collapse from a 1990 biomass survey showing 400,000 tonnes; just 1,700 tonnes remained in a fishery that had for more than a century yielded a quarter-million tonne catches, year after year.

DFO added that there was no sign of recovery. Even if a recovery started immediately, it would be at least 15 years before the Atlantic cod stocks could tolerate any significant fishing.

Nobody knows for certain what caused the cod stocks to decline so quickly. Climate change may be a factor and, obviously, overfishing played a significant role. Mismanagement of the resource and political interference are other suspects.

Many of Newfoundland's fishers point the finger of blame at seals. Since international pressure curbed the annual seal hunt, the size of the grey seal herds has grown enormously. It's a matter of debate whether the seals are eating juvenile cod or species the cod themselves feed on. One thing is certain, as they say in the fishing ports along the east coast, "The seals aren't eating turnips." In April 2001, the fishers got some backing for their belief that the seals are the villains. The Fisheries Resource Conservation Council called for an expansion of the seal hunt as a way of helping the recovery of the cod stocks.

However, the method of fishing is looking more and more like a major culprit of the cod population crash. Cod and other groundfish live on the ocean floor. The best way to get the biggest catch is to drag huge nets across the seabed. Some of these nets are as big as football fields and their mouths are kept open by steel doors and chains. As this heavy equipment is dragged along the ocean floor it ploughs up the sand, mud, and gravel that is a complex and important habitat. The eggs of cod and other groundfish are crushed, as are marine lifeforms that are part of the food chain.

An area of the seabed larger than Canada is dragged in this way each year. Marine biologists say the effect on ocean life is similar to the devastation that clear-cutting of forests has on landscapes. Professor Les Watling at the University of Maine says that "Nothing humans do to the sea has more physical impact" than bottom trawling.

Dr. Peter Auster of the U.S. National Undersea Research Center has studied ocean floors in areas that have been bottom trawled. He has found extensive destruction of nooks and crannies where juvenile fish can hide from predators as they mature. According to his research, the survival rate of juvenile cod increases in areas where sponges, rocks, shells, etc. are intact. In areas that are trawled regularly, the living structures are often damaged or destroyed, resulting in fewer places to hide. A growing number of fishers share the opinion of marine scientists who see the need to establish marine reserves, areas that are permanently closed to all types of fishing. So-called "no-take" zones in New Zealand waters are aiding the regeneration of fish stocks that are reportedly "spilling over" into areas outside the reserve.

As well, many species not sought by fishers get caught in the drag nets and are killed. These "waste" species may be an important food source for a type of fish that is valuable to us. Or, fishers going after one species may be doing irreparable harm to an unrelated fishery. For instance, researchers estimate that for each shrimp caught by trawling, 10 or more juvenile turbot or cod are trapped and die.

However, the search for a cause is complex as Jeffrey Simpson pointed out in the column in the Globe and Mail in 1998: "Provinces blame Ottawa. Newfoundland blames Nova Scotia and foreigners. Inshore fishermen blame offshore trawlers. The union blames Ottawa and the companies. Everyone blames the scientists. Policymakers blame politicians. Politicians blame each other until another set of jerrybuilt policies appears, designed to patch holes and buy peace until either money or patience, or both, are exhausted and everyone returns to finger-pointing."

As natural as it is to look for something or someone to blame, the reality is that the fish are gone.

In Newfoundland, virtually every community depended on the fishery. There are three pulp and paper towns: Corner Brook, Grand Falls, and Stephenville. There is one mining town: Labrador City. There is one town based on hydroelectricity: Churchill Falls. There are a handful of small farming communities, such as Codroy, and there are a few administrative and business centres -- St. John's and Gander. Almost all of the other 700 communities in the province depended directly and exclusively upon the fishery. The federal government tried to soften the blow with income-support programs. But, the collapse of the fishery isn't just about lost jobs and economic hardship; it's about the disappearance of a way of life.

Atlantic Cod History - http:// collections.ic.gc.ca/cod/ home1.htm

Collapse of Northern Cod - http://www.fisherycrisis.com/ cod.html

Fisheries and Oceans Canada - http://www.dfo-mpo.gc. ca/home-accueil_e. htm

BRAVE BOASTS

As Britain and France fought for control of North America during the Seven Years War (1756-63), access to the rich fisheries was more than a side issue. In 1761, the French foreign minister, the Duc de Choiseul, offered to surrender Canada to Britain. However, he made a point of retaining French rights to the Newfoundland fishery in his offer. The British Prime Minister, William Pitt, was not impressed. He told Parliament he would sooner lose his right arm than allow the French continued access to the fishery. The Duc de Choiseul was equally dramatic: he said he would rather be stoned in the streets of Paris than surrender French rights to the North American fisheries.

The Soviet Union approached fishing as it would a military campaign. Reconnaissance ships were sent out to look for viable fishing grounds. Once located, a fleet would be sent in to harvest the resource. These fleets centred on factory ships such as the Professor Baranov. This vessel had 20 trawlers working around it, each delivering its catch and then going off to fish some more.

In a single day, the Professor Baranov could: salt 200 tonnes of herring; fillet and freeze 100 tonnes of groundfish; produce 150 tonnes of fish meal; and manufacture five tonnes of fish oil. In addition, the Professor Baranov was serviced by fuel tankers, refrigerated transport ships to take the processed fish back home, and floating repair ships.

THE FUTURE

Optimists are sure there is a future for Newfoundland's fishery. If there is, it won't be much like its past. Some experiments are going on with cod farming that might add to the mussel, trout, and salmon aquaculture industries that are already established. So far, there are only 500 jobs, mostly seasonal, in Newfoundland's young aquaculture operations, but, there are high hopes that this will rise. However, it seems very unlikely that all of the 42,000 people who lost their jobs when the cod fishery collapsed will find work in aquaculture.

FACT FILE

Groundfish is the name given to a whole class of fish that live on or near the ocean floor and includes cod, haddock, pollock, hake, flounder, sole, and halibut.

Atlantic cod usually weigh between two and three kilos and are about 60 to 70 cm long; however, there is one record of a cod that weighed about 96 kilos and was more than 180 cm long.

On average, 1,000 tonnes of groundfish will generate 30 full-time jobs in a year.

A limited cod fishery has been opened in 2001 off southern Newfoundland with a total allowable catch of 5,000 tonnes.