page_title: Atlantic cod
section_title: Northeast Atlantic cod
hierarchical_section_title: Atlantic cod / Fisheries / Northeast Atlantic cod
caption_attribution_description: English: Estimated biomass of North-East Arctic Cod 1959-2006. The estimation are performed by the Arctic Fisheries Working Group of ICES, published in the ICES Report AFWG 2007, ACFM:16. Estimation method: Standard Virtual Population Analysis.
context_page_description: The Atlantic cod is a benthopelagic fish of the family Gadidae, widely consumed by humans. It is also commercially known as cod or codling. Dry cod may be prepared as unsalted stockfish, as cured salt cod or clipfish.
  In the western Atlantic Ocean, cod has a distribution north of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and around both coasts of Greenland and the Labrador Sea; in the eastern Atlantic, it is found from the Bay of Biscay north to the Arctic Ocean, including the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, Sea of the Hebrides, areas around Iceland and the Barents Sea.
  The largest individual on record was 1.5 m long and weighed 47 kg, but usually the cod is between 61 cm and 1.2 m long and weighs up to 40 kg. Males and females are similar in size and weight.
  Atlantic cod can live for 25 years, and usually attain sexual maturity between ages two and four, although cod in the northeast Arctic can take as long as eight years to mature fully. Colouring is brown or green, with spots on the dorsal side, shading to silver ventrally. A stripe along its lateral line is clearly visible. Its habitat ranges from the coastal shoreline down to 305 m along the continental shelf.
context_section_description: The Northeast Atlantic has the world's largest population of cod. By far, the largest part of this population is the Northeast Arctic cod, as it is labelled by the ICES, or the Arcto-Norwegian cod stock, also referred to as skrei, a Norwegian name meaning something like "the wanderer", distinguishing it from coastal cod. The Northeast Arctic cod is found in the Barents Sea area. This stock spawns in March and April along the Norwegian coast, about 40% around the Lofoten archipelago. Newly hatched larvae drift northwards with the coastal current while feeding on larval copepods. By summer, the young cod reach the Barents Sea, where they stay for the rest of their lives, until their spawning migration. As the cod grow, they feed on krill and other small crustaceans and fish. Adult cod primarily feed on fish such as capelin and herring. The northeast Arctic cod also show cannibalistic behaviour. Estimated stock size was 2,260,000 t (2,220,000 long tons; 2,490,000 short tons) in 2008.
  The North Sea cod stock is primarily fished by European Union member states and Norway. In 1999, the catch was divided among Denmark (31%), Scotland (25%), the rest of the United Kingdom (12%), the Netherlands (10%), Belgium, Germany and Norway (17%). In the 1970s, the annual catch rose to between 200,000 and 300,000 t (200,000 and 300,000 long tons; 220,000 and 330,000 short tons). Due to concerns about overfishing, catch quotas were repeatedly reduced in the 1980s and 1990s. In 2003, ICES stated a high risk existed of stock collapse if then current exploitation levels continued, and recommended a moratorium on catching Atlantic cod in the North Sea during 2004. However, agriculture and fisheries ministers from the Council of the European Union endorsed the EU/Norway Agreement and set the total allowable catch  at 27,300 t (26,900 long tons; 30,100 short tons). Seafood sustainability guides, such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch, often recommend environmentally conscious customers not purchase Atlantic cod.
  The stock of Northeast Arctic cod was more than four million tons following World War II, but declined to a historic minimum of 740,000 t (730,000 long tons; 820,000 short tons) in 1983. The catch reached a historic maximum of 1,343,000 t (1,322,000 long tons; 1,480,000 short tons) in 1956, and bottomed out at 212,000 t (209,000 long tons; 234,000 short tons) in 1990. Since 2000, the spawning stock has increased quite quickly, helped by low fishing pressure. The total catch in 2012 was 754,131 t (742,221 long tons; 831,287 short tons), the major fishers being Norway and Russia.
caption: Estimated biomass of the Northeast Arctic cod stock for the period 1946–2012, in million tons: Light blue bars represent the immature fraction of the stock, while the darker blue bars represent the spawning biomass.[45]
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