IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v385y1997i6616d10.1038_385521a0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Potential collapse of North Sea cod stocks

Author

Listed:
  • R. M. Cook

    (SOAEFD Marine Laboratory)

  • A. Sinclair

    (Gulf Fisheries Centre)

  • G. Stefánsson

    (Marine Research Institute)

Abstract

In common with many fish stocks in the North Sea, cod are heavily exploited with as much as 60% of the fishable stock being removed annually1. The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), which advises fishery managers on the state of fish stocks in the northeast Atlantic, has recommended that exploitation rates be reduced considerably and immediately, in order to prevent further stock decline1. We examine the most recent ICES assessment of the North Sea cod stock1 to see if the present exploitation regimen is sustainable. Our analysis suggests that not only is the present exploitation rate unsustainable, but that even regimens close to the maximum sustainable yield may be potentially prone to risk. There is a need for swift and effective action to protect the stock and avoid the problems of the much publicized collapse of cod stocks off the coast of Atlantic Canada2,3.

Suggested Citation

  • R. M. Cook & A. Sinclair & G. Stefánsson, 1997. "Potential collapse of North Sea cod stocks," Nature, Nature, vol. 385(6616), pages 521-522, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:385:y:1997:i:6616:d:10.1038_385521a0
    DOI: 10.1038/385521a0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/385521a0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/385521a0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cabral, Reniel B. & Aliño, Porfirio M. & Lim, May T., 2013. "A coupled stock-recruitment-age-structured model of the North Sea cod under the influence of depensation," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 253(C), pages 1-8.
    2. Rudi Voss & Martin F Quaas & Jörn O Schmidt & Olli Tahvonen & Martin Lindegren & Christian Möllmann, 2014. "Assessing Social – Ecological Trade-Offs to Advance Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(9), pages 1-8, September.
    3. Isomaa, Marleena & Kaitala, Veijo & Laakso, Jouni, 2014. "Determining the impact of initial age structure on the recovery of a healthy over-harvested population," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 286(C), pages 45-52.
    4. Bowen Zhang & Heidi Pethybridge & Patti Virtue & Peter D. Nichols & Kerrie Swadling & Alan Williams & Kim Lee-Chang, 2023. "Evaluating Alternative and Sustainable Food Resources: A Review of the Nutritional Composition of Myctophid Fishes," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-19, August.
    5. Hossain, Md. Monir & Matsuishi, Takashi & Arhonditsis, George, 2010. "Elucidation of ecosystem attributes of an oligotrophic lake in Hokkaido, Japan, using Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE)," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 221(13), pages 1717-1730.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:385:y:1997:i:6616:d:10.1038_385521a0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.