ICES GIVES TWO-PART ADVICE FOR NORTH SEA COD

ICES gives two-part advice for North Sea cod. Both recommendations represent a sharp decrease from this year’s quota.

Author: Bente Kjøllesdal

On Tuesday, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) presented its quota advice for North Sea cod for 2026.

The council is twofold:

The scientists are recommending zero cod fishing in the North Sea or that catches should not exceed a total of 12,280 tonnes.

“It is very unusual for ICES to give such two-part advice, but it is demanding to give advice for stocks that mix with each other,” says marine scientist Bjarte Bogstad, who is HI’s representative in ICES.

Both recommended quotas for 2026 are a sharp reduction from this year’s quota.

Three subpopulations

The background to the two-part advice is that cod in the North Sea is divided into three sub-stocks. These spawn in separate fields: Northwest, South and “Viking” (northeast). But except for spawning in winter, the fish mix and are caught around each other.

This is the third year that the North Sea cod advice has been based on a division into three sub-stocks. It has been challenging to determine how to take into account the worst-affected stock, which is the cod in the southern North Sea.

With the advice for 2026, ICES opens up two approaches to this.

All fishing poses greater risk to the southern stock

If you look at the three stocks as one and use an MSY approach together with “precautionary” considerations, there should be zero fishing for North Sea cod in 2026.

MSY stands for Maximum Sustainable Yield . An MSY approach is about maximising the long-term yield from a stock while still maintaining sustainable fishing.

“If you use the “precautionary” approach only on the weaker cod stock in the south, the quota council says that you can fish up to 8,670 tonnes for the northwest stock, 3,610 tonnes for the Viking stock and 0 tonnes for the stock in the south,” says Bogstad. This makes a total of 12,280 tonnes.

At the same time, ICES clarifies that this will be riskier than zero fishing:

Since the three sub-stocks mix and are fished together, this will lead to a higher risk of the southern stock remaining below the precautionary limit.

Both councils are lower than expected catch this year

The quota for 2025 is a total of 25,028 tonnes for the entire quota area. This includes the North Sea, Skagerrak, west of Scotland and the eastern English Channel. At the same time, ICES expects this year’s catches to be even higher, specifically 34,717 tonnes including discards. This is the basis for the advice.

“A catch of 12,280 tons would thus be a reduction of 65 percent from the expected catch in 2025,” says Bogstad.

The Norwegian quota for 2025 is 3003 tonnes. As of September 21, 1533 tonnes of this fish have been caught.

Image credit: Erling Svensen / Institute of Marine Research