Fisheries Oceanography Group, FOG [Memorial University Newfoundland, MUN]

The Atlantic cod of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland were once a major food source for Europeans and North Americans. France and Portugal began fishing the Grand Banks in the early 1500s, joined by England during the 1600s. Spain, the former Soviet Union, Poland and Canada harvested great quantities of cod with dragnet trawlers during the latter part of the 20th century. In 1992 the northern cod population finally succumbed to decades of overfishing and several years of recruitment failure (poor reproductive success), due to natural climate change in the marine environment. Remnants of this once huge fish population are now found only in the bays of eastern Newfoundland and Labrador.