How Many Newfoundlanders Does it Take to Destroy a Cod Stock?

How many comments have I read in Canadian papers lately about the big mistake Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn made by allowing a limited fishery off the Newfoundland and Labrador coast this year? How many supposed experts have suddenly crawled out of the woodwork to warn us that the sky is falling once again? I can’t tell you the numbers, but I can tell you there are clearly a lot more people concerned with a few fish being caught in Newfoundland and Labrador than there has ever been about anything else the in the Province.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for conservation. I believe that if the stocks really are too low to support limited fishing then there shouldn’t be any. Perhaps there is reason for concern about the announced commercial fishery and the quotas issued there, I don’t know. Having said that, I don’t believe for a minute that this quota, or the fact that Uncle John and his Aunt Martha’s plan to throw a line over the side of the boat, is the root of the problem.

We all know that the problems plaguing the recovery of the Atlantic fish stocks are complex and involve commercial overfishing, habitat destruction by draggers, changing water temperatures and a myriad of other issues. All of those issues need to be addressed if there is ever going to be any hope of rebuilding those stocks. That said, I really don’t see how everyone can say with a straight face that because a few souls in poor old Newfoundland and Labrador want to catch a meal or two during the summer months that it will devastate the remaining stocks.

As I said, if the stocks are really that bad, go ahead and ban both the commercial and recreational fisheries, but before you do I would suggest that the real culprits be shut down as well. First stop the foreign fleets from fishing the spawning grounds on the nose and tail of the Grand Banks, ban bottom dragging that’s destroying fish habitat and seriously examine the effects of warmer water temperatures due to global warming. Yes, it might be easy for the mouth pieces of some Canadian papers to simply blame Newfoundlanders and Labradoreans for killing off the stocks but what will shutting down this limited fishery really accomplish?

I for one love a good meal of cod and I can tell you with out a doubt that there is no shortage of it to be found anywhere. I can go into any Sobey’s, IGA or Dominion supermarket and buy all the cod I want. I can visit any restaurant and order fish and chips until I turn blue eating it. Where does it all come from? I’m sure it doesn’t just magically appear on store shelves, perhaps a gift from the fish fairy. In fact I have yet to see a shortage of the stuff regardless of the time of year.

I for one would love an accounting of exactly where all of this fish is coming from before anyone demands that DFO shut down Ma and Pa in their 12 foot aluminum boat. Is it supply coming from by-catch of other species? How much of the supply is the result of catches designed for supposed “scientific” purposes? How much is illegally caught and how much is being imported? All of these seem like valid questions to me because if the majority of this abundant supply is locally caught, and I believe it is since I know freshly caught fish when I taste it, there is a much bigger problem here than a small sanctioned fishery.

Perhaps what should be called for is not the cancellation of the limited fishery just announced but a thorough investigation of the existing retail cod supply. Regardless what the official story is, it appears, at least on the surface that the cod moratorium instituted in 1992 is little more than a smoke screen covering up an underground fishery that by its very existence would show a “don’t ask, don’t tell” attitude by both our federal and provincial fisheries officials.

On the plus side, I know if I catch 5 fish this summer that means I won’t have to buy my fish from retailers or restaurants for a while. I don’t see that as harming the fish stocks at all, in fact I see it as potentially disrupting an underground economy which may result in little or no difference in the overall numbers of fish since it will lower the demand at those retail outlets. Now where’s the salt pork and hard tack?