Pollock vs Cod

[imatsui]

I think there are some similarities between Newfoundland cod fishery and Pollock fishery, but there are also several critical differences too. First, similarities of those two fish. It makes sense because Pollock is evolved from ancestral cod. They both school and move as big group, it makes human easier to catch them with less effort. Also, they are both very important part of people’s diet in some area. As it was mentioned in the book, Pollock is big part of people’s diet in Japan. You will see them in any super market in many different ways. But actually, I didn’t know kamaboko is made from Pollock, and that was little surprising. I think Pollock is most known for their egg in Japan. And it is not hard to imagine the impact of Pollock on Japanese economic, like cod was in Newfoundland. Also population fluctuation is another similarities between those two fish. Pollock can live in larger range temperature water as a subarctic fish, but its population increases and decreases a lot. The reason for this huge population fluctuation is controversial but concern for overfishing are rising.
One difference book mentioned between two fisheries was their history. Compared to very long cod fishery history, Pollock is very young. The reason newfoundland cod fishery had hard time to establish regulation or successful management was that it had so much connection to people’s life for long and estimated impact from closing cod fishery was too big that made people hesitate to make decision at right time. On the other hand, Pollock fishery is only a few decades old. Considering success of Pollock fishery, any change or regulation on it definitely have some impact but I think we can learn important lesson from Newfoundland and prevent the tragedy this time.

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