Northern cod remains in cautious zone, DFO says growth has stalled

Scientists with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada say the northern cod stock remains above the critical zone in Newfoundland and Labrador, but hasn't shown signs of growth since 2016.

DFO released the findings of its latest stock assessment on Tuesday, showing levels are still in the cautious zone. 

Paul Regular, northern cod stock lead for DFO, said their findings suggest numbers haven't changed much since 2016.

"The growth of the stock appears to have stalled. And so that is a concern," he said. "And it's stalled in the cautious zone where we need to proceed with caution, because we're not hugely above the limit reference point."

The limit reference point marks the boundary between what's considered critical and cautious. Given the uncertainty that comes with these assessments, Regular said there's about a 22 per cent chance that the stock is actually in the critical zone.

One of the biggest factors is a lack of capelin — the tiny fish that cod rely on for sustenance and growth. The capelin stock collapsed between 1990 and 1991, and has not recovered since.

Without improvements to capelin, Regular said DFO's projections show a poor prognosis for the future of cod.

"Even under a no-fishing scenario, there is a moderately high risk that the [northern cod] stock will decline into the critical zone over the next three years," he said.

The province's fisheries union, meanwhile, is questioning the validity of DFO's findings this year, given that some of the work was done earlier in the season than normal.

Fish, Food & Allied Workers union (FFAW) believes fish would have been missed in DFO's assessment because of the migration patterns of northern cod.

"DFO completed their survey a month earlier than usual in 2J and 3K, and we believe this impacted the accuracy of the information collected," said FFAW-Unifor president Greg Pretty in a statement on Tuesday. "Harvesters report extremely high catch rates, very low net soak times, and big, healthy fish. Fishing mortality remains very low, and this is all good news for the stock and our fishery."

Regular said the earlier assessments had to do with technical problems encountered when conducting their assessments in the northern region. 

"That does introduce some variability into our assessment, but … every year is different," he said. "Every year there's lot of variability. So it's within the range of noise that we have and consider in the assessment."

Regular said the silver lining to this year's findings is that DFO is now confident in listing northern cod in the cautious zone. It had previous classified the stock in the critical zone, before changing its assessment model in 2023 to take in more information going back as far as 1954. Under the new model, DFO reclassified the stock in the cautious zone.