Pollock vs Cod

[aknobloch]

Fisheries: Alaska Pollock vs. Northern Cod

In the book Billion-Dollar Fish, author Kevin Bailey introduces us to the Alaskan Pollock industry. An industry that has grown in the US to have an annual gross value of $1 billion. While this success can be largely attributed to its overall demand, the characteristics of the fish also play an intimate role. Pollock, similarly, to cod, are dense schooling fish; this allows large numbers to be caught with relatively little effort. One pass of a trawler can bring thousands of pounds of fish on board. They also can be found in a wide variety of habitat, ranging from coastal waters to open ocean. However, this also presents regulation issues, not unlike the cod faced, where their populations ventured out of the protection of governments.

Differences between the fisheries can be seen in the age of the fishery itself. While the cod fishery is arguably thousands of years old the pollock industry is only about forty to fifty years old. Having a fishery as old as the cod fishery results in a long line of traditions and cultures that have built around the fish. This makes it extremely difficult to modify perceived conceptions of the state of the fishery. Whereas, the pollock fishery has gone through strategic regulations falling within quotas recommended by science. Overall, the pollock fishery was built based on a better understanding of human interactions with the ocean.

[peepple]

I believe that the pollock has more commercial value than the cod industry, as with just fifty years of fishing the species brought billionaires within a few years of fishing it.

[kmingo2]

Kevin Bailey states that most often the Polluck industry is seen as the ‘poster child’ of fisheries management. Do you agree?

[ramaldonado]

You make a really good point about how the Pollock fishery has had strategic regulations that keep that fishery within a certain quota. Luckily for the Pollock fishery (and industry) that they were able to learn from some of the mistakes and fall outs from some of the older fisheries like the Cod fishery. It definitely makes me wonder how well those other fisheries could have sustained if they knew then what we know now.

[jdkelly6]

I like the point you make about the polluck fishery being designed off of prior knowledge about fisheries. since it has been established much more recently it was able to learn from some of the issues we have seen in the past and that definitely influenced how well it was managed.

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