Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky (1997) tells the entire tale of cod, including the “tragic tale of environmental failure, of depleted fishing stocks where once the cod’s numbers were legendary” (back cover). This book focuses on the declining sustainability of this species and the many demanding consumers of cod. The two highlights of the book are what seemed to be an over abundance of cod, which caused a downfall of the species, and how new technologies increased overfishing of this species.
Cod, being a bottom feeder, was an easy target for certain trawling and steam engines that were used to conquer them.. These two technologies resulted in an empty ocean floor. Trawling is when a net is suspended just above the ocean floor to capture a specific species (and any other species in the area). Cod also give up easily once they are caught, which adds to the ease of catching them. “A cod, once caught, does not fight for freedom” (p 33).
Cod became popular because of the abundant white flesh, unlike many other fish.
“The cod is prized for the whiteness of its flesh, the whitest of the white-fleshed fish. The flesh is so purely white that the large flakes almost glow on the plate. Whiteness is the nature of the sluggish muscle tissue of fish that are suspended in the near- weightless environment at the bottom of the ocean. The cod will try to swim in front of an oncoming trawler net, but after ten minutes it falls to the back of the net, exhausted.” (p 33-34)
Salted cod or dried cod was a necessity for many civilizations back in the day. As Kurlansky discussed, it allowed for many societies to travel the seas, since it rarely spoiled. It is how the Vikings were able to travel throughout the Northern part of the world; they were able to survive off of dried cod. Soon, many other societies followed suit: they dried cod to survive explorations of North America. So maybe we can blame the cod for causing the destruction of North American landscapes?
Cod seemed to be overpopulated to every fisherman; many thought the species would never dwindle. “It has been calculated that if no accident prevented the hatching of the eggs and each egg reached maturity, it would take only three years to fill the sea so that you could walk across the Atlantic dryshod on the backs of cod.” (Alexandre Dumas 1873, p 32) This was the mindset that everyone held until their nets and lines came up empty and the size of the fish began to dwindle. It takes a long time for people to understand that most resources are limited, even though they may be renewable. It seems to be a story retold in many historical tales. If only we could learn from the past to understand that resources and species need time to recover and re-populate. While we can use resources we have to allow them to sustain themselves and not over harvest them for our current increasing demands.
The real downfall for cod was the introduction of freezers. Once it was figured out how to ship ‘fresh’ cod around the world to the many demanding consumers, more and more fish were picked out of the sea. Freezing was introduced around the time that people wanted fresh cod over salt cod, good for the consumers bad for the oceans, as usual. This is when fish sticks came about as well, which have revolutionized our kids eating habits to this day. Sonar technologies also caused an accelerated downfall of cod populations. From the use of trawlers, cod populations started showing declines in the early 1900s but governments were slow to implement regulations. I wonder if regulations were able to pass earlier if the cod population would have never reached such a low point and been able sustain themselves via regulated catches? But hindsight is 20/20. Since this book has been published cod has been introduced into the aquaculture industry. The cod industry is still struggling between population comebacks and regulations as well.
This book is a great read to understand how many species, especially fish, had their natural populations depleted. It shows how we have moved towards aquaculture over natural fish populations and how it became necessary to keep up with consumer demands. The book is a quick read and I highly recommend it.
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