Talk:Cod

Codling

A codling IS another species of fish (though it is also a word for a young cod) - consult OED or FishBase if you don't believe me! seglea 20:24, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Call Of Duty

CoD is also the initals for Call of Duty - a computer game. Does it warrent a disambiguation page, or a notice at the top? I just had to figure out what CoD stood for and couldn't find it here, so it may proove useful for others. --Oreckel 02:38, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It helped me Oreckel. Thanks. citizen320.

This combined with the many other things with the initials COD is probably a good cause for a disambiguation page. Other CODs furthur down the page in another comment.--Thingy1 (talk) 15:51, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Endangered

This article should have something on the species' being endangered. Can someone with the necessary knowledge oblige, please? Andy Mabbett 11:46, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Indeed. There's an oblique mention of overfishing and quotas at the very end of the article (have to scroll way down to find it) but the fact that it's an ingredient in fish and chips is right up at the top! --Smithfarm 18:14, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi, have made a mention of this as it's as important that it's endangered as it is that it's considered by many to be the UK's national dish. It's been on the endangered list since 2002, but I didn't mention this as wasn't sure it was significant. --Rebroad 19:15, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Cod is not an endangered species. Populations may collapse and restore, but the cod as a fish species is not close to being endangered. --Arnejohs 20:34, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Arnejohs. It is certainly on the endangered species list maintained by the WWF. Rather than delete the mention of it being endangered, if you have an issue with this being mentioned, can I suggest you refine the sentence to make mention of who regards it as endangered, otherwise I would consider your edit as POV. Thanks, --Rebroad 22:39, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

There is no scientific basis supporting the point of view that cod, as a species, is endangered. According to the red list programme's own definition of a vulnerable species (VU), such species are ("… facing a high risk of extinction in the wild in the medium-term future,....."). This is not even supported in the report from Jesse Marsh, (representing a Canadian aquarium) on which the red list programme bases its labelling. This kind of labelling effectively reduces the authority of red IUCN Red List, which claims to be scientifically based. Unfortunately the scientific basis has proved to be false. Hopefully the list will develop control routines able to increase the list reliability from its current level. Obviously the red list consider cod being a Newfoundland species, neglecting that a huge an sustainable cod fishery is taken place in the Barents Sea. --Arnejohs 13:05, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

C.O.D

Is also an abbreviation for Crazy Ol' Dave, a co-worker of mine.

Or perhaps an abbreviation for the term "Cash on Delivery". That is far more true than "Crazy Ol' Dave".

COD also stands for Chemical Oxygen Demand, which is the minimum amount of oxygen required to completely oxidize a given amount of and organic compound. The term "chemical oxygen demand" is nearly always written in its abbreviated form. There should be a disambiguation page but I don't know how they're made.

Photos

The picture of the "cod surfacing" is kind of puzzling. What is if for? It doesn't really show anything, as far as I can tell. What this article could really use is a good photo of a cod. The photo of the fisherman holding the cod is more a picture of the fisherman than the cod, which is hardly shown in such a way as give a good visual depiction of the animal. If someone has a good photo of a cod, it would be a very useful addition to the article. Hi There 23:03, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Good point! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.208.159.20 (talk) 12:34, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

NPOV in Cod trade section

The existing section has been blockquoted for reference. Will get around to removing most blatant parts later, but also note that this section is mostly unreferenced, and so I am concerned that a more NPOV wording may be seen as validation for unsubstantiated claims being made.

Cod has been an important economic commodity in an international market since the Viking period (around 800 AD). Norwegians used dried cod during their travels and soon a dried cod market developed in southern Europe. This market has lasted for more than 1000 years, passing through periods of Black Death, wars and other crisis and still is an important Norwegian fish trade. The Basques also played an important role in the cod trade.

Apart from the long history this particular trade also differs from most other trade of fish by the location of the fishing grounds, far from large populations and without any domestic market. The large cod fisheries along the coast of North Norway (and in particular close to the Lofoten islands) have been developed almost uniquely for export, depending on sea transport of stockfish over large distances. Since the introduction of salt, dried salted cod (klippfisk) has also been exported. The trade operations and the sea transport were by the end of the 14th century taken over by the Hanseatic League, Bergen being the most important port of trade.

William Pitt the Elder, criticising the Treaty of Paris in Parliament, claimed that cod was British gold; and that it was folly to restore Newfoundland fishing rights to the French.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the New World, especially in Massachusetts and Newfoundland, cod became a major commodity, forming triangular trade networks and cross-cultural exchanges. In the 20th century, Iceland re-emerged as a fishing power and entered the Cod Wars to gain control over the north Atlantic seas. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Cod fishing off the coast of Europe and America severely depleted Cod stocks there which has since become a major political issue as the necessity of restricting catches to allow fish populations to recover has run up against opposition from the fishing industry and politicians reluctant to approve any measures that will result in job losses. The 2006 Northwest Atlantic cod quota is set at 23,000 tons representing half the available stocks, while it is set to 473,000 tons for the Northeast Atlantic cod.

The recent collapse of the Northwest Atlantic cod stock has resulted in the closure of many areas to fishing in an attempt to protect the remaining stocks of cod. Additionally the number of days that fishermen are allowed to fish has been sharply cut back in the northeast United States. Incentives have been put into place to encourage the fishing of alternative species, such as haddock, which are now in the process of recovering from overfishing from the 1960s to the early 1990s when a series of regulations took effect.

It should be noted however that State intervention in the overfishing problem has to date proved ineffective. Cutbacks in fishing days have historically been shown to be ineffective because fishing boats are expensive to run while being very, very effective at catching fish (due to fishing sonar and guided nets). The upshot of this combination of factors is that if the number of fishing days the boats would need to be restricted to, to preserve fishing stocks, would result in the boats becoming economics unviable, since they wouldn't be catching enough fish to pay for themselves.

In other words, the fishing industry is in a fatal position; their investment in expensive boats depends upon those boats being able to operate at something reasonably close to their capacity. However, if they did this, Cod would very rapidly become not only commerically extinct (which it more or less is now) but also functionality extinct.

Unfortunately, politicians, historically, have generally bowed to the fishing lobby, even though the pressure they applied was not in fact in their own best interest. The final upshot of this is that Cod is now commerically extinct, and the fishing industry is in its terrible position. Had fishing been properly managed, Cod populations could have been sustainably fished.

Kelvinc 03:58, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I very much agree in questioning parts of this section. My proposal is to delete the specific New Foundland part and the obvious POVs in the last part of the section. I will also add essential references on the European cod trade history, documented back to year 800. --Arnejohs 07:03, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Scientific classification/wrong linking/useless comments

If "cod is the common name for the genus Gadus" then the scientific classification should also include Gadus and it should be bolded. The list of "related species called cod" seems to suggest that the term cod extends to the Gadidae family or even to the Gadiformes order. This points need to be clarified by somebody.

This article is linked to Specie Gadus morhua (Spanish and Portuguese). A genus cannot link to a specie in this manner because genus is one level above specie. The two things are different.

The comments about what C.O.D. stand for are completely useless here. We are not taking about abbreviations. This article is about a type of fish.

ICE77 -- 84.223.76.72 11:11, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Endangered Species Controversy

I have added a short section about attempts in Canada to place cod on an endangered species list, as well as by the WWF, in a, hopefully, neutral way. Cheers, (RFB (talk) 01:03, 17 November 2007 (UTC))

Since all the discussion on this issue relates to Atlantic Cod, I think it should be placed there, not in this article. There are several stocks with different management regimes only within the Northeast Atlantic Cod stock, where the North-East Arctic Cod stock of the Barents Sea is the biggest. Since the controversy relates to the tendency of focusing the American part even in cases where this is the minor part of the total stock, the discussion is better understood in the context of the Atlantic cod article.---Arnejohs (talk) 00:44, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I quite agree that, as it stands, the section is too restricted to the Newfoundland case. I do not believe however that it should be moved. According to the Hutchings Nature article (ref.8), Gadus as a species shows very poor recovery after depletion and this view appears to be shared by other scientists. The collapse of the Newfoundland population and its very poor recovery is only the first time this was really noted. This is obviously important for all cod fisheries, not just for the Atlantic cod. The Newfoundland case is by the way consistently mentioned in European media reports, such as the North sea cod controversy and the recovery issue lies at the heart of the management problems. For example, Iceland which was considered a healthy fishery in the past is now limiting the catch because they are concerned about this. A controvery now also has emerged because the Pacific cod population of Puget sound is being declared endangered. One option would be to restructure the section with more emphasis on the species as a whole. The Newfoundland section could be shortened (e.g., leave out the some of the political issues) but then include brief discussions of the same issue encountered elsewhere (Puget Sound, Iceland, North Sea) (RFB (talk) 01:47, 20 November 2007 (UTC))

Pre-Columbian Basque presense in the New World

I have yet to see any evidence of a Basque presense in the New World prior to Columbis. The earliest historical and archaeological evidence comes from the 16th century, when we know the Basques began cod-fishing and whaling in Terranova (Labrador and Newfoundland). Until someone provides evidence (not a source that claims they reached the New World before Columbus, but gives evidence of a Basque presense before 1492), the "citation needed" should remain up. Again, please. No secondary sources blindly repeating what others have said. Thank you. Jonas Poole (talk) 01:21, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Longevity

I can't find the lifespan of cod in the article. (70.66.200.113 (talk) 16:13, 13 February 2009 (UTC))