In the previous video, Lao Fan told you about the global trade in the main varieties of basa fish, salmon and shrimp, and today Lao Fan will talk to you about a new theme: cod. Lao Fan personally likes to talk about cod very much, because cod has too much to say. This time, Lao Fan will first talk about cod species and the world's main cod fishery.
Cod: Bread in the Sea in the Western World, A History of Trade and War
First of all, let's look at the picture above, this picture is a collection of major species of cod (there are other species of fish), cod is a very important edible fish in the Western world, known as bread in the sea. For the Western powers, the fishing and trade of cod is also a history of war.
The Norse set sail to discover Iceland and greenland was associated with cod. The Basques (a minority currently living in Spain) go to the Fishing Grounds of Newfoundland every year to catch cod in large quantities and don't want people to know about it (a Basque secret). Later, the British discovered the Large Fishery of Newfoundland and developed it around cod. The Hanseatic League's dried cod trade, European fishermen's going out to sea to catch cod opened up geographical discoveries, and even the famous Atlantic Triangle trade was related to cod, and many early immigrants from Europe to North America made a living from cod fishing.
In modern times, the cod war between the United Kingdom and Iceland has been fought three times, and recently after Brexit, there has been a fourth fight. A very important reason why Norway held a referendum to decide not to join the European Union is also because of the allocation of cod resources. Even the Scottish independence referendum and Brexit cod are inseparable.
Cod family
Let's take a look at the species of cod, in the left half of the figure above we can see that there are many families under the cod order, in this article we mainly introduce the cod family and the strong-tailed cod family. The yellow-framed part of the right half of the image above shows several of the main genera of the cod family: Arctic Cod, True Cod, Haddock, Tooth Cod, Blue Cod and Narrow Cod!
The two most important genera in the cod family are the genus Euthyropoeae and the genus Narrow Cod, so let's take a look at the main species of these two genera. As shown in the figure above, there are three main species of the genus: Atlantic Cod, Pacific Cod and Greenland Cod, of which Atlantic Cod and Pacific Cod are important species in the history of the cod trade, and everyone knows it. The Greenland cod, on the other hand, has little presence in our lives due to its very low production.
There is another species of cod to be particularly illustrated, that is, the Alaskan cod (Norwegian cod), which was originally classified as a genus of cod. But after years of reclassification, it was classified into the genus Euterus, so now we call it the yellow line cod. So now the genus is left with Atlantic cod and green (narrow) cod.
From the above picture, we can see the true appearance of several cods introduced earlier, the first from the left is the Alaska Pollock and the Atlantic Cod, and the three fish in the middle are the Alaska Pollock, haddock and Pacific cod. The picture on the right shows two species of pollock, the Atlantic pollock and the green -- green (narrow) cod (coal fish).
From the above figure, we can get a clearer picture of the appearance of the cod mentioned earlier, which we will introduce later on the cod and the pollock.
We can pay attention to the six cod in the upper half of the above figure, each has three dorsal fins, while the bottom cod and snake cod appear to have only two dorsal fins (the second dorsal fin and the third dorsal fin are joined together), and we can determine the species of cod based on this feature. There are also a small number of species of cod that have only one dorsal fin.
The two cods in the picture above are the Blue Whiting in the North Atlantic, and the other is the Southern Blue Whiting in the Southern Hemisphere, and they both live in different waters.
Let's take a look at Whiting, which has rows of sharp teeth in its mouth, and the cod has three dorsal fins and lives mainly in the North Atlantic, so it is also called Atlantic cod. In the Pacific Ocean, there is also the Pacific Whiting, which also has a name called Pacific Hake.
No need for cod. As the name suggests, this fish does not have whiskers like the chin of the cod and the narrow cod, so you can take a closer look.
The two species of cod pictured above are called the silver hake (Sliver Hake) and the blue long-tailed cod Hoki, which is more common in the southern hemisphere, and its dorsal fin and tail fin are joined together like a sword.
These varieties of cod introduced by Lao Fan above are cod with very important commercial value, the yield is very high, and it may not be well-known in China, but it is a very popular product in many countries abroad!
The picture above shows the five main species of north American cod, from top to bottom: Offshore Hake, Silver Hake, White Hake, Red Hake, and Spotted Hake. The highest yields are the white and red cod.
Vincent's Cod Tour: Bergen, Norway
The above two photos were taken by Lao Fan in Bergen, Norway. Bergen was in the past the most important cod trading center of the Hanseatic League in Northern Europe, and there is a sculpture of dried cod in the old street in the center of Bergen.
The above two photos were taken at the Fisheries Museum in Bergen, Norway, where there are a lot of dried cod, piled up like hills, which is very distinctive.
Brother Fan's Cod Tour: Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, Canada
The above two photos were taken by Lao Fan in Newfoundland, Canada, everyone knows that newfoundland Shoal is a world-renowned large fishing ground, is one of the most important fishing grounds for Atlantic cod, the photo is Lao Fan with the local fishermen out to sea to harvest the spoils.
The above two photos were taken by Lao Fan when he went to Nova Scotia, Canada, which is a French-speaking part of Canada, where many French fishermen fish. There is also an Atlantic Fisheries Museum, which displays locally produced commodities such as dried cod, and the painting on the right shows local fishermen handling cod.
The following "cod" are not cod, and some are not recommended for consumption!
Silver cod: Small-scaled canine tooth Antarctic fish, Mo's canine tooth Antarctic fish (near the South Pole), Perciformes Antarctica Antarcticae, high-grade fish.
Black cod: Sable fish (Canada, U.S. Pacific coast), scientific name hairy naked cover fish, commonly known as butter fish, catfish family black catfish genus, high-grade fish.
Flat cod: Greenland halibut (North Atlantic), is a flounder, recommended for consumption.
Oil cod: Spiny snake mackerel, the same genus as the platinum gun (heteroscaled snake mackerel), is a distant relative of tuna, not recommended to eat!
Cod: Fine-scaled cod, deep-sea cod (Russian Bering Sea), genus Offid cod in the family Rattail, is a distant relative of cod and can be eaten.
The picture above shows the appearance of the cod, the head is very large, the body is slender, and the tail is like a mouse, so it is called rat tail cod.
The chart above shows the proportion of production of cod families, with Alaskan cod having the highest production, accounting for 36% of the total production. The second is the real cod (including atlantic cod and pacific cod), accounting for 18%. The third is that several species of cod add up to 15 percent. Fourth, blue cod and cod together account for 11%. Fifth, green cod accounts for 6%. Seventh is haddock, which accounts for 5 percent. The most commonly used fish for English people to make fish and chips is haddock. The remaining cod species account for 9% of the total production.
The chart above shows the total global wild cod catch from 1950 to 2017, and the catch of wild cod rose from 3 million tons in 1950 to more than 10 million tons in 1974. Then it began to decline, and then continued to rise, reaching the highest peak of cod production ever caught by humans in 1988 and 1989 (nearly 12 million tons), then began to decline, and by 2007 it had fallen to 6 million tons. Cod catches have begun to recover over the years, and the current annual production of cod is about 8 million tons.
Averaging the production of cod fished by humans over the past half century, the average annual harvest of cod by humans is about 8 million tons, which is a very staggering number, and these cod greatly supplement the daily protein intake of human beings, which is why cod is closely related to our lives.
Important traditional cod fisheries in human history are
Atlantic North Sea Fisheries: The main fishing countries are the United Kingdom, Iceland and Norway.
Newfoundland Fisheries, Canada: Newfoundland Fisheries (before 1990) has been one of the world's most important cod fisheries for centuries, early fished by the British, French and Spanish (Basques).
The most important cod fisheries today are
Pacific West Bering Sea Fishery: Close to Russia, local fishermen mainly catch bass and Pacific cod.
Pacific East Bering Sea Fishery: Near Alaska, USA, local fishermen mainly catch pollock.
Balents Sea fisheries in the Arctic Ocean: Norwegian and Russian fishermen catch Atlantic cod.
So we can see the changes in cod fisheries, from the past to the present has changed a lot. We have a preliminary count of the current 75 cod fisheries in the world (a cod species plus a fishery is a cod).
Fish fisheries, for example, Atlantic cod are distributed in different fisheries, and different fisheries are considered different fisheries in different fisheries).
Below we have listed four of the world's most famous cod fisheries including:
Northwest Pacific Cod Fishery (Fishing for Cod in the Northwest Pacific)
North-East Atlantic blue cod fishery
North-east Pacific narrow cod fishery
North-East Atlantic cod fishery
The picture above shows us 18 important cod fisheries with an annual output of more than 10,000 tons, and the average annual output of these 18 fisheries is also about 8 million tons. It can be said that 18 of the 75 fisheries in the world account for more than 90% of the annual production of cod. It can be seen that although there are many cod fisheries, the real production is not much, only 18.
From the above figure, we can see that there are only 8 cod fisheries with an annual output of more than 100,000 tons in the world, so let's talk about these 8 fisheries separately.
We divide the cod fisheries with an annual output of more than 100,000 tons into the first 4 and the last 4, of which the first 4 are the 4 most important cod fisheries we mentioned earlier, and each annual output is more than 1 million tons. They are the Alaskan Cod Fishery in the Northwest Pacific (green part), the North-East Atlantic Blue Cod Fishery (red part), the North-East Pacific Pollock Fishery (white part), and the North-East Atlantic True Cod Fishery (blue part). The average annual production of the four of them is as high as 6 million tons.
The figure above shows the last four sub-important fisheries (100,000 to 400,000 tonnes) of the 8 cod fisheries producing more than 100,000 tonnes, namely the green (narrow) cod fishery in the northeast Atlantic, the haddock fishery in the northeast Atlantic, the Pacific real cod fishery in the northeast Pacific Ocean, and the Pacific real cod fishery in the northwest Pacific Ocean.
The picture above shows three of the world's most important fishing for real cod (COD), namely the true cod fishery in the northeast Atlantic, the real cod fishery in the Russian Far East, and the real cod fishery in Alaska. Among them, the Northeast Atlantic fishery mainly catches Atlantic cod, and the Russian Far East and Alaska fisheries mainly catch Pacific cod. The combined catch of cod in these three fisheries is between 1.5 million tonnes and 2 million tonnes.
As shown in the chart above, the most important of the three real cod catch fisheries is the true cod fishery (Barents Sea) in the northeast Atlantic, which is mainly fished by norwegian and Russian fishermen, with an average annual catch of about 1.2 million tonnes in recent years. The other two fisheries produce very little in comparison.
Above are three important pollock fisheries in the world, namely the Pollock fishery in the Russian Far East, the Norwegian Atlantic Pollock fishery and the Alaska Pollock fishery.
From the above figure, it can be seen that alaska's narrow cod fishery has the highest catch among these three fisheries, with an average annual production of nearly 2 million tons in recent years, and the average annual production of the russian Far East's narrow cod fishery in recent years is about 1.5 million tons, while the Norwegian Atlantic green cod fishery has a relatively low production of only about 300,000 or 400,000 tons.
Sustainable fisheries for cod
From the above, we can see that many countries around the world catch a lot of cod in major fisheries every year, so what is the current resource status of cod? We can tell you about this that although cod has been overfished for a period of time in history, many countries have learned their lessons, and in recent years the sustainable fishery of cod around the world has done very well. Let's take a look at those cod fisheries that have achieved sustainable fisheries certification.
As you can see from the chart above, 85% of Atlantic cod has been certified by MSC for sustainable fisheries, and atlantic cod caught in Norway, Russia and Iceland has basically obtained MSC's sustainable fisheries certification.
From the image above, we can see that 70% of the Pacific cod has received seafood Watch sustainable fishery certification.
From the chart above, we can see that 85% of haddocks are certified by MSC for sustainable fisheries, 100% of haddocks caught in Norway, Russia, Iceland and Canada are certified, and haddocks caught in the UK have also begun certification.
From the chart above, it can be seen that 65% of yellow-lined (narrow) cod are certified by MSC for sustainable fisheries, of which all yellow-line cod caught in Alaska are certified, and 40% of yellow-lined cod caught in Russia are certified as sustainable fisheries (2018 data).
From the chart above, we can see that 45% of the beardless cod (HAKE) is certified as a sustainable fishery by Seafood Watch, mainly in some states in the United States.
90% of the snake cod (LING COD) in the chart above has obtained Seafood Watch sustainable fisheries certification, of which 20% of the fishing in Washington, California and Oregon is the Green Label (Best choice), and 70% of the fishing in the Canadian province of BC and alaska in the United States is the gold label (Good alternative).
In summary, we can see that the global fishing of various cod species requires sustainable fisheries certification, and the proportion is increasing. Because sustainable fisheries are for future generations, cod resources are effectively protected and not overfished.
epilogue
Cod is a large family with many varieties and a variety of cooking methods.
Cod fishing has a long history, is an ancient fishery in many Western countries, is a major source of animal protein and an important international trade commodity.
Cod fisheries are both ancient and modern, the cod trade has driven globalization, and modern cod fishing and processing technologies are developing rapidly.
Cod resources, once overfished, have become a model for sustainable fisheries.
Statement of Originality
This article is an original article for eight fresh crossings of the sea. Please do not reprint without authorization.