Can Cod Be Saved?
Overfishing and inept management have driven Atlantic cod to the brink. Now climate change looms. Atlantic cod still have a chance at survival, but it’s not going to be easy.
Overfishing and inept management have driven Atlantic cod to the brink. Now climate change looms. Atlantic cod still have a chance at survival, but it’s not going to be easy.
For centuries, Atlantic cod has been essential to New England’s identity. Yet today, you can rarely find locally caught cod in a grocery store or on a menu – because it has been fished to the brink of disaster. Here’s what it’s going to take to save New England’s founding fish.
How do we save Atlantic cod? These five conservation and management measures could help New England’s founding fish recover from its current overfished status.
This magnificent whale is on the brink of extinction.
“Humans hold the cards to decide whether North Atlantic right whales rebuild to a sustainable population or go extinct,” said Emily Green, Senior Attorney at CLF. “Engaging a new generation of young advocates is critical to our shared fight for the protection of right whales and our oceans. We’re thrilled to share their artwork with communities across New England.”
“There’s a fairly damning record of the agency (NOAA Fisheries, also known as the National Marine Fisheries Service) approving (New England Fishery Management) Council plans it should have known were not likely to end overfishing, and were not likely to put cod stocks on any rebuilding timeline,” said Peter Shelley, senior counsel for the foundation.
Atlantic cod is in crisis. For decades, our fishery managers have failed to take effective action to stem the problem. Now, a rapidly warming ocean is making cod’s precarious position even worse. Now, CLF is calling on the federal government to follow the law and rebuild Atlantic cod. If management doesn’t improve now, we could lose our founding fish forever.
“Our regional managers have lost control of and abandoned the cod fishery,” said Peter Shelley, Senior Counsel at Conservation Law Foundation. “After decades of reckless decision-making, Atlantic cod populations are now in crisis. To give this iconic species a chance at survival and recovery, the federal government must take the strongest possible action today and temporarily prohibit further cod fishing.”
After a moving encounter with a right whale, CLF member Vi Patek joined our lawsuit to protect the endangered species. Members like Vi — and you — are essential to our work going to court and defending, enforcing, and enacting important environmental protections.
“The fishermen have had the ocean all to themselves for centuries,” says Peter Shelley, senior counsel for the Conservation Law Foundation in Boston. Shelley says the lawsuit challenging the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monument, and the presidential authority that created it, failed to acknowledge other “values” such as conservation and preservation as powers granted in the Antiquities Act of 1906.