Cod fishing in Newfoundland
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Cod fishing in Newfoundland was carried out at a
subsistence A subsistence economy is an economy directed to basic subsistence (the provision of food, clothing, shelter) rather than to the market. Henceforth, "subsistence" is understood as supporting oneself at a minimum level. Often, the subsistence econo ...
level for centuries, but large scale fishing began shortly after the European arrival in the North American continent in 1492, with the waters being found to be preternaturally plentiful, and ended after intense
overfishing Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing fish stock), resulting in th ...
with the collapse of the fisheries in 1992.


Native Canadian fishing

The
Beothuk The Beothuk ( or ; also spelled Beothuck) were a group of indigenous people who lived on the island of Newfoundland. Beginning around AD 1500, the Beothuk culture formed. This appeared to be the most recent cultural manifestation of peoples w ...
(called ''
Skræling ''Skræling'' (Old Norse and Icelandic: ''skrælingi'', plural ''skrælingjar'') is the name the Norse Greenlanders used for the peoples they encountered in North America (Canada and Greenland). In surviving sources, it is first applied to the ...
s'' by the
Vikings Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...
) were the indigenous people of Newfoundland. The meat portions of their diet was caribou, marine mammals and fish. With the arrival of British and French coastal settlements, the Beothuk were forced inland, and the lack of their normal food source contributed to a decrease in the Beothuk population. Beothuk numbers began to dwindle rapidly due to a combination of factors directly relating to
European colonization of the Americas During the Age of Discovery, a large scale European colonization of the Americas took place between about 1492 and 1800. Although the Norse had explored and colonized areas of the North Atlantic, colonizing Greenland and creating a short ter ...
, Inuit and Mi'kmaq migration, and by the 19th Century, the tribe no longer existed.


15th and 16th centuries

After his voyage in 1497, John Cabot's crew reported that
"the sea there is full of fish that can be taken not only with nets but with fishing-baskets."
and around 1600 English fishing captains still reported cod shoals
"so thick by the shore that we hardly have been able to row a boat through them."
In the early sixteenth century, fishermen from England, France, Spain and Portugal discovered the best places to fish for
cod Cod is the common name for the demersal fish genus '' Gadus'', belonging to the family Gadidae. Cod is also used as part of the common name for a number of other fish species, and one species that belongs to genus ''Gadus'' is commonly not call ...
in the waters off
Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...
, and how best to
preserve The word preserve may refer to: Common uses * Fruit preserves, a type of sweet spread or condiment * Nature reserve, an area of importance for wildlife, flora, fauna or other special interest, usually protected Arts, entertainment, and media ...
the fish for the journey home. The French, Spanish and Portuguese fishermen tended to fish on the
Grand Banks The Grand Banks of Newfoundland are a series of underwater plateaus south-east of the island of Newfoundland on the North American continental shelf. The Grand Banks are one of the world's richest fishing grounds, supporting Atlantic cod, swordf ...
and other banks out to sea, where fish were always available. They salted their fish on board ship and it was not
dried Drying is a mass transfer process consisting of the removal of water or another solvent by evaporation from a solid, semi-solid or liquid. This process is often used as a final production step before selling or packaging products. To be consider ...
until brought to Europe. The English fishermen, however, concentrated on fishing inshore where the fish were only to be found at certain times of the year, during their
migration Migration, migratory, or migrate may refer to: Human migration * Human migration, physical movement by humans from one region to another ** International migration, when peoples cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum le ...
s. These fishermen used small boats and returned to shore every day. They developed a system of light salting, washing and drying onshore which became very popular because the fish could remain edible for years. Many of their coastal sites gradually developed into settlements, notably St. John's, now the provincial capital. In 1585 the Portuguese fishing fleet was raided by the English, who were at war with Portugal as it was part of the Kingdom of Spain.
Sir John Hawkins Sir John Hawkins (also spelled Hawkyns) (1532 – 12 November 1595) was a pioneering English naval commander, naval administrator and privateer. He pioneered, and was an early promoter of, English involvement in the Atlantic slave trade. Hawk ...
devised the raid as a way to rob Portugal and Spain of experienced mariners, and capture ships. Led by Sir Bernard Drake, the raid was a disaster for the Portuguese, who did not send a fishing fleet the year after. In the late sixteenth century the Spanish and Portuguese
fisheries Fishery can mean either the enterprise of raising or harvesting fish and other aquatic life; or more commonly, the site where such enterprise takes place ( a.k.a. fishing ground). Commercial fisheries include wild fisheries and fish farms, both ...
were terminated, mainly as a result of the failure of the
Spanish Armada The Spanish Armada (a.k.a. the Enterprise of England, es, Grande y Felicísima Armada, links=no, lit=Great and Most Fortunate Navy) was a Spanish fleet that sailed from Lisbon in late May 1588, commanded by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, an aris ...
, and thereafter the English and French shared the fishery every summer until 1904 when the French agreed to relinquish it to the Newfoundland residents.


20th century fishing methods and the fishery collapse

In 1904 the British and French governments signed the
Entente Cordiale The Entente Cordiale (; ) comprised a series of agreements signed on 8 April 1904 between the United Kingdom and the French Republic which saw a significant improvement in Anglo-French relations. Beyond the immediate concerns of colonial de ...
which, among many other matters, extinguished French claims to Newfoundland in exchange for the
Îles de Los Îles de Los are an island group lying off Conakry in Guinea, on the west coast of Africa. Their name is derived from the Portuguese: ''Ilhas dos Ídolos'', "Islands of the Idols". They are located about off the headland limiting the southern ...
off West Africa. In 1951 factory fishing began with new super-trawlers such as the 'Fairtry'; 280 feet long and 2,600 gross tons. The cod catch peaked in 1968 at 810,000 tons, approximately three times more than the maximum yearly catch achieved before the super-trawlers. Approximately eight million tons of cod were caught between 1647 and 1750, a period encompassing 25 to 40 cod generations. The factory trawlers took the same amount in 15 years. The industry collapsed entirely in the early 1990s owing to overfishing and debatably, greed, lack of foresight and poor local administration. By 1993 six cod populations had collapsed, forcing a belated moratorium on fishing. Spawning biomass had decreased by at least 75% in all stocks, by 90% in three of the six stocks, and by 99% in the case of 'northern' cod, previously the largest cod fishery in the world. After a 10-year moratorium on fishing begun in 1992, the cod had still not returned. It was thought that the local ecosystem might have changed, one possibility being that greater numbers of
capelin The capelin or caplin (''Mallotus villosus'') is a small forage fish of the smelt family found in the North Atlantic, North Pacific and Arctic oceans. In summer, it grazes on dense swarms of plankton at the edge of the ice shelf. Larger capelin ...
, which used to provide food for the cod, might be eating the juvenile cod. The waters appeared to be dominated by crab and shrimp rather than fish. However, by 2011 it became apparent that the fisheries were returning to their original abundance, just more slowly than had been anticipated.


Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement

The ''Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement'' (CETA) between Canada and the European Union is a
Free Trade Agreement A free-trade agreement (FTA) or treaty is an agreement according to international law to form a free-trade area between the cooperating states. There are two types of trade agreements: bilateral and multilateral. Bilateral trade agreements occ ...
which is still under negotiation as of May 2015.G+M: "Newfoundland and Labrador says talks at stalemate with Ottawa over fish fund"
26 May 2015
The provincial government has argued that the Federal government of Canada in Ottawa reneged on a deal to pay $280 million in exchange for its relinquishment of minimum processing requirements as part of CETA. Those rules helped protect jobs in fish plants, especially in rural areas hit hard by the cod moratorium since 1992.


See also

*
Cod fisheries Cod fisheries are fisheries for cod. Cod is the common name for fish of the genus ''Gadus'', belonging to the family Gadidae, and this article is confined to three species that belong to this genus: the Atlantic cod, the Pacific cod and the Gr ...
*
Collapse of the Atlantic northwest cod fishery In 1992, Northern Cod populations fell to 1% of historical levels, due in large part to decades of overfishing. The Canadian Federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, John Crosbie, declared a moratorium on the Northern Cod fishery, which fo ...


References

{{Reflist


Further reading

* ''Outport Adaptations: Social Indicators Through Newfoundland's Cod Crisis'', Hamilton & Butler, Univ of New Hampshir

Fishing in Canada Economy of Newfoundland and Labrador Fisheries law