The cod of the Grand Banks
The fishery that drew Europe across the ocean, and then ended
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The Grand Banks are an area of shallow sea off Newfoundland, where cold and warm currents meet and make the water unusually rich in fish. The fishery was in practice North America's first lasting economic link to Europe, and its dried cod supplied both Catholic fast days and the slave plantations of the Caribbean. The collapse in 1992 put 30,000 people out of work overnight and is the standard example of a stock failing abruptly after decades of warnings revised downward for political reasons. The stock has not returned, more than thirty years on.
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Off Newfoundland lay one of the richest fishing grounds on Earth. European fishermen came every summer for centuries — probably before Columbus. By 1992 the cod were almost gone, and Canada had to close the fishery entirely.
Sources
- Kurlansky, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (1997)
- Fisheries and Oceans Canada: Northern cod moratorium, 1992
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