Farmed Cod to restock the coast?

[Leon Roskilly]

In an edition of BBC Radio 4's Farming Today programme, broadcast on Thursday 2nd June, it has been suggested that young cod can be bred and released into the sea along our coasts, to help to restore the coastal cod population.

 

(I was interviewed for my two penny's worth)

 

The programme can be 'Listened to Again' over the Internet from:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/farmingto...day/index.shtml

 

You can also add your own comments on the programme at the BBC Farming Today website.

 

(The item is towards the end of the programme)

 

Tight Lines - leon

 

[ 02. June 2005, 08:09 AM: Message edited by: Leon Roskilly ]

[Guest stevie cop]

I understand that the location is being kept secret to stop commercial fishermen from plundering the stock fish before they are released ;o)

[Ken Davison South Wales]

[stavey]

they will all be gobbled up within there second year of life as usually happens when we have a bit of a good year for breeding, cant see the sence in it, until we address the net issues. ar*se backwards if you ask me which brains of britain thought of this, could it be a politician perhaps?

[big_cod]

They are a thick as ---- a tottal ban on pair trawling to start with then you might have a chance with a recovery program, but i think they are gonna have to go much further to make any sence out of this.

[Guest jay_con]

Im interested on Leon's thoughts and will listen to the programme. Any comment Leon???

 

Yes there are problems with the commercial fleet but

surely more fish in the sea is better than less?????

[Dan]

There was an article in yesterdays guardian that they have to train them to look after themselves in the wild (apparently they are a bit thick!) they cant just feed them then expect them to know where to find a meal!

 

Dan

[Guest jay_con]

How likely is this to actually happen???

[Guest jay_con]

Bloody L Leon anything with the beeb requires the use of real player. Why do they insist on using this peice of junk. suppose ill have to download it. What a carry on last time I used. It had a huge fight with WMP.

[Leon Roskilly]

The main danger is that this (along with cod farming for farm-reared fish fish to go directly to the fish-market), could be seen by politicians etc as a possible 'solution' to overfishing/poor fisheries management.

 

And provide another excuse not to do something about the fundamental problem.

 

And as we know, there are many problems with raising fish artifically and concentrated into relatively small areas.

 

- pellets need wild fish to be harvested to be turned into pellets

- pollution

- parasites and disease

 

and the cost.

 

Again funds that could be used to research and implement good fisheries policy are likely to be diverted to the 'farming solution'.

 

(It's interesting that they have discovered that whereas salmonoids swim round and round a pen, ignoring small tears etc, cod behave very differently, disappearing out through any small hole in the netting!)

 

Then there is the scale of the problem.

 

From a single fish, nature produces millions of eggs; millions of fry that are used by the overall ecology as part of the food chain.

 

Only those fittest to survive in the environment in which they find themselves pass on their successful genes to future generations.

 

By harvesting and protecting these early stage cod, we can get quite a few more fish to a certain level, but deny the ecology the benefit of those eggs/fry.

 

And we distort the genetic base of the 'survivors', perhaps unintentionally breeding out traits that allow cod to survive their earlier life cycles in a natural environment.

 

Even though that may not make a difference, depending upon the size at which the artifically raised offspring are released, trained or not, they are straight into a fairly hostile environment where the majority will probably end up as discards or seal food etc.

 

I doubt that farm-reared cod are going to make much difference to the availability of spawning stock biomass.

 

I have no doubt that the exercise will be expensive both in economic and environmental terms.

 

Anyway, why bother with such a difficult and costly project when the fundamental problem is not the avialability of small cod, but in getting them to a spawning size and allowing most that can survive the dangers of the sea to spawn at least once before they are harvested.

 

And I'm sure that there are a few fishermen, now making a good living from nephrops (prawns) and haddock (thanks to the dramatic decline of N.Sea cod) who would welcome a return of plentiful large cod as they would a sudden expansion of the seal population!

 

Tight Lines - leon