NEW ICES COD ADVICE HIGHLIGHTS FLAWS IN THE SYSTEM

New ICES cod advice highlights flaws in the system. New advice from ICES for a zero TAC in the iconic North Sea cod fishery is bound to capture headlines, but behind the numbers lies a far more complicated reality, in which a contested computer model and warming seas have led to a nonsensical proposal to stop fishing a population that contains millions of fish and is actually growing.

Dale Rodmell, of the Eastern England FPO, explains in this new article.

The dramatic cut in catch advice has more to do with novel, untested catch advice rules than with any recent changes in the stock.

The iconic North Sea cod has long been the poster child for whatever narrative media or lobbyists wish to paint about the state of the marine environment, usually a doom-monger’s one. In 2012, The Sunday Times reported that all the fish had been eaten, leaving only 100 adult cod. That dramatic story didn’t survive the facts, but today, with zero-catch scientific advice for 2026, the stage is set for another possible round of sensationalist headlines. To set the record straight before you read it elsewhere: this year, the cod stock is estimated to be 62,000 tonnes.

Why Zero-Catch Advice?

So why a sudden crash to zero in the advised total allowable catch (TAC) from the 15,511 tonnes advised last year? The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), the scientific body responsible for issuing fishing advice, identifies two trigger causes.  First, it states that the stock size is lower than previously thought. Second, the number of young fish entering the fishery has recently reached a low point.

However, to understand how these factors lead to zero-catch advice, we must dive deeper. After a re-evaluation three years ago, ICES now recognises the stock as three sub-stocks: two northern sub-stocks, covering the northern North Sea and west of Scotland, and one southern sub-stock, including the southern North Sea and eastern English Channel. The crash in advised catch stems from how ICES assesses the southern sub-stock and how this relates to its precautionary advice rules.

ICES projects the southern sub-stock cannot reliably recover to full reproductive capacity by 2026 under any catch scenario; as a result, it advises zero catch for this sub-stock.  But the main issue is that, even though the two northern sub-stocks are healthier and are at full reproductive capacity, ICES has extended the zero-catch advice to all three. This is based on the idea that the sub-stocks might mix outside of the winter spawning season, so fishing in the north could inadvertently catch cod from the south. However, there is no solid evidence yet about how much mixing actually happens.  Ongoing studies are trying to answer this, but results are still years away. There could be some mixing, or there might be none at all.

The crash in catch advice, therefore, rests on this unknown. It also masks that over the last five years, the southern sub-stock has been on a positive trajectory, rising from a low point of 2782 tonnes in 2020 to an estimated 9114 tonnes this year. What’s more is that the reduction in young fish recruitment shown in the assessment applies mainly to the two northern sub-stocks.   For the southern sub-stock, it remains similar over that time period, except for 2022, when there was a more positive spike.

Consequences

There is no directed fishery for cod in the southern North Sea, but the northern sub-stocks remain abundant and are integral to the mixed whitefish fishery in the northern North Sea, which includes other abundant species like haddock and whiting. Zero-catch advice, if followed, would not only be a disastrous economic blow to the entire sector and the supply chain that depends on this fishery, but cod cannot simply be avoided in a mixed fishery, as implied by a zero-catch approach.

Warming Seas

Taking a longer-term perspective, the fact that the southern North Sea cod stock is reduced relative to past history is, of course, not news to the fishing industry. The English cod fishing fleet relocated to Scottish ports over fifteen years ago to continue fishing. It has been estimated that, due to climate change, the distribution of the stock as a whole has been migrating north at around 12 km per year.

Cod stocks in the nearby Celtic and Irish Seas are also at record lows, and there is strong evidence that warmer sea temperatures are harming cod reproduction.  This year’s marine heatwave is a worrying sign for the future. Long-term climate studies indicate that cod living at the southern edge of their range in these areas will eventually disappear.

While some environmental lobbyists may be quick to blame overfishing, the more relevant narrative is how these southern stocks are suffering in the face of warming seas.

Caught in a Science Pincer

While the fleet survived the loss of southern North Sea opportunities by moving north, it is now caught between the impacts of climate change and a scientific process that looks more to the past than the future.

Implementing a zero catch now on the northern grounds would cripple the fleet when there is no direct fishery on the sub-stock of concern. Justifying the need for such action relies on an untested assumption about sub-stock mixing, for a possibly illusory goal of returning the southern sub-stock to its earlier state, when there is little prospect of the environmental conditions permitting long-term recovery.

Even if halting fishing on productive northern grounds could guarantee a short-term recovery and delay the southern sub-stock’s long-term decline, that would not justify shutting down the mixed whitefish fleet.  For those whose livelihoods and communities depend on this fishery, such a drastic measure would not be precautionary; it would be reckless.  When deciding catch limits this autumn, managers will carry a heavy burden of responsibility to strike the right balance.

Photo by Tom Brown on Unsplash

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