The various Atlantic cod populations in the St. Lawrence and North Atlantic, once considered as providential and inexhaustible manna by the fishers who plied those waters, have today been designated as being “of special concern” or “threatened”, and even “endangered”.
COSEWIC believes commercial overfishing to be the main cause of the species’ decline: as many as 400,000 tons of Atlantic cod were fished every year in Canadian waters. Today, the cod have all but disappeared. By the time the Government of Canada banned cod fishing entirely, the total allowable catch per year was down to 12,000 tons.
