High fishing pressure, along with regional climatic variability that delivered colder water to the Northwest Atlantic ocean, disturbed the cod spawning grounds and led to a dramatic cod fishery collapse. Overcapacity – too many fishers harvesting too few fish – had been a serious problem in the cod fishery and one that government officials did not want to see happen in the province's other fisheries. a. to protect and conserve Canada's cod stocks b. to ensure the cod stocks were exploited domestically c. to annoy U.S. fishermen d. to restrict cod fishing practices The Newfoundland cod fishery is a social-ecological system that is centered upon Arctic cod, Gadus morhua populations in the waters off Newfoundland and Labrador in the Northwest Atlantic. Although the cod fishery supported workers for hundreds of years, a variety of changes occurred during the 20th century that made the industry much less sustainable than ever before. Today, cod stocks are on the verge of collapse, hovering at 3-4% of sustainable levels. The destruction of the Grand Banks cod is one of the biggest fisheries disasters of all time. Foremost among these were advances in fishing technologies that dramatically increased the ability of fishers to find and harvest large quantities cod. Unit prices of shellfish is more expensive than groundfish, which is a reason why landed value has doubled while landed volume has been reduced by half. The Atlantic cod, a fish that came to symbolize bounty to America’s colonial settlers, is on the brink of disappearing, despite years of fishing limits aimed at rebuilding stocks. The collapse of the northern cod fishery marked a profound change in the ecological, economic and socio-cultural structure of Atlantic Canada. Observations on the reduced number and size of cod, and concerns of fishermen and amateur marine biologists was offered, but generally ignored in favour of the uncertain science and harmful federal policies of Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans until the undeniable complete collapse of the fishery. Even with the benefit of hindsight and improvements in wild fisheries science, for example, my research revealed that the systems that allowed the cod collapse to happen remain largely intact. in what was once the world's richest fishery. And science helped make it happen. Why did Canada extend its territorial waters out to 200 nautical miles in the 1970's. The Canadian government banned fishing on the Banks in 1992, when scientists discovered there were nearly no adult cod left. Like NCARP, TAGS tried to reduce the number of people dependent on the fishery in rural communities. The moratorium in 1992 marked the largest industrial closure in Canadian history, [16] and it was expressed most acutely in Newfoundland, whose continental shelf lay under the region most heavily fished. The most interesting part of my research revealed why this was still a story a quarter of a century after-the-fact. Approximately 35,000 fishermen and fish plant workers lost their jobs due to the collapse of the cod fisheries, with devastating impact for Newfoundland communities. According to any reasonable analysis, the collapse was first due to massive overfishing. The collapse of the northern cod fishery marked a profound change in the ecological, economic and socio-cultural structure of Atlantic Canada. After the collapse of cod in the beginning of the 1990s, fisheries shifted their primary target from groundfish to shellfish. Atlantic Cod: The first English explorers to arrive on the east coast of Canada reflected on the massive numbers of fish. 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