Originally Posted by
bzbdewd
More at issue is the way the drag boats operate - obliterating everything in their path thus destroying the food chain. As long as we do that the Cod stocks will NOT replenish themselves. Much easier to blame over fishing (when the amount of guys still fishing commercially has decreased dramatically in the last ten years) than the root cause of HOW things are fished and our polluting.
Dredging isn't the cause. It appears that the ecological niche the cod occupied has been filled by other species (herring and mackerel), which apparently also feed on cod fry. The collapse of the cod population in the NW atlantic (Newfoundland/Grand Banks) may be so complete that no fishing at all (over the past 14 yeatrs or so) + no disturbance of the oceans may never lead to their recovery - There's no critical mass/density of cod to lead to a recovery.