Fished Out: The Rise and Fall of the Cod Fishery

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Topic spans: 1958 - 2004

Fished Out: The Rise and Fall of the Cod Fishery

It's greedy, it's ugly and it's built to last. For more than 500 years the Atlantic cod was the king of the global fish market, helping build empires, spark wars and found Britain's first colonies in North America. CBC Archives looks at how Canada's abundant cod stocks off of Newfoundland and Labrador were fished to the brink of extinction in what is considered one of the biggest ecological disasters of the 20th century.

Photo of Newfoundland stamp from Claude Bélanger, Marianopolis College

11 television clips

6 radio clips

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As 'To the Last Fish' states, we can still buy most kinds of fish, but what is left just costs more. Are we not seeing the same pattern with many of our other natural resources?

As oil reserves begin to dry up, domestic and imported oil costs more. Yet one day soon we will have to come to the realization that these resources may not be available at any cost.

Submitted by: S. Mandel

To the last fish

Broadcast Date: May 14, 2003

While the 1992 and 2003 fishing moratoriums were seen as tough medicine, fishermen were told that the bans were necessary if the cod stocks were ever expected to recover.
But more than a decade after the initial ban the Atlantic cod population continues its free fall.
This CBC Television report looks at new scientific research that suggests decades of overfishing has adversely affected the cod's breeding cycle, leaving them permanently stunted as a result.

To the last fish

• For more than a century Canadian fishery research supported the notion of an unending supply of cod.
• The work of the late 19th-century British scientist Thomas Huxley put forward the idea of "the indomitable force of nature" that resisted attempts to exploit it.
• During a gathering of international fishery officials in 1883 he argued that overfishing was an unfounded fear saying, "Any tendency to overfishing will meet with its natural check in the diminution of the supply."

• An 1885 report on the fisheries prepared for the federal government echoed Huxley's beliefs. It said, in part that "It is impossible, not merely to exhaust them, but even noticeably to lessen their number."
• Research conducted in the 1930s and excerpted in 1937's Book Of Newfoundland, stated "these investigations have given no indication that the stocks of cod are being unduly depleted by the present fishing methods."

• That opinion was more or less upheld by fishery research scientists until 1989, when DFO scientists admitted that they had severely overestimated the population of Atlantic cod.

• In May 2003, former DFO scientist Ransom Myers made the cover of the journal Nature with his research into the effects of overfishing on the cod's breeding cycle and genetic structure.
• His research argued that excessive offshore fishing practices had destroyed an entire adult generation of cod in the space of 15 years.

• As a result Myers said the species' breeding cycle was permanently disrupted, leaving the remaining cod to reproduce at a younger age and smaller size.
• As Myers puts it in this clip, "we've cut the head of off the fishery."

To the last fish

Medium: Television

Program: The National

Broadcast Date: May 14, 2003

Guest(s): Scott Morehead, Ransom Myers, Daniel Polley

: Peter Mansbridge
Reporter: Eve Savory

Duration: 8:52

Movie footage "Old Man and the Sea" courtesy Warner Bros.

Last updated:
March 25, 2008

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