Editing Atlantic cod (section)

===Northwest Atlantic cod===
{{main|Collapse of the Atlantic northwest cod fishery}}

The Northwest Atlantic cod has been regarded as heavily overfished throughout its range, resulting in a crash in the fishery in the United States and Canada during the early 1990s.

Newfoundland's northern cod fishery can be traced back to the 16th century. On average, about {{cvt|300000|t|ST}} of cod were landed annually until the 1960s, when advances in technology enabled factory trawlers to take larger catches. By 1968, landings for the fish peaked at {{cvt|800000|t|ST}} before a gradual decline set in. With the reopening of the limited cod fisheries in 2006, nearly {{cvt|2700|t|ST}} of cod were hauled in. In 2007, offshore cod stocks were estimated at 1% of what they were in 1977.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/n-l-funds-cod-fishery-research-on-15th-anniversary-of-moratorium-1.660303?ref=rss |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121104111114/http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2007/07/02/cod-moratorium.html?ref=rss |title=N.L. funds cod fishery research on 15th anniversary of moratorium |date=2 July 2007 |archive-date=4 November 2012 |url-status=live |publisher=[[CBC News]]}}</ref>[[File:Atlantic cod landings western Atlantic.jpg|thumb|420x420px|Landings of Atlantic cod (''Gadus morhua'') in the western Atlantic from 1960 to 2019. Data source: NAFO.]]Technologies that contributed to the collapse of Atlantic cod include engine-powered vessels and frozen food compartments aboard ships. Engine-powered vessels had larger nets, greater range, and better navigation. The capacity to catch fish became limitless. In addition, sonar technology gave an edge to detecting and catching fish. Sonar was originally developed during World War&nbsp;II to locate enemy submarines, but was later applied to locating schools of fish. These new technologies, as well as bottom trawlers that destroyed entire ecosystems, contributed to the collapse of Atlantic cod. They were vastly different from old techniques used, such as hand lines and long lines.{{citation needed|date=August 2022}}

The fishery has only recently begun to recover, and may never fully recover because of a possibly stable change in the [[food chain]]. Atlantic cod was a top-tier predator, along with [[haddock]], [[flounder]] and [[hake]], feeding upon smaller prey, such as [[herring]], [[capelin]], [[shrimp]], and [[snow crab]].<ref name="Frank">{{cite journal|author=Kenneth T. Frank |author2=Brian Petrie |author3=Jae S. Choi |author4=William C. Leggett|s2cid=45088691 |year=2005|title=Trophic Cascades in a Formerly Cod-Dominated Ecosystem|journal=[[Science (journal)|Science]] |volume=308 |pages=1621–1623 |doi=10.1126/science.1113075|pmid=15947186|issue=5728 |bibcode=2005Sci...308.1621F }}</ref> With the large predatory fish removed, their prey have had population explosions and have become the top predators, affecting the survival rates of cod eggs and fry.

In the winter of 2011–2012, the cod fishery succeeded in convincing [[NOAA]] to postpone for one year the planned 82% reduction in catch limits. Instead, the limit was reduced by 22%. The fishery brought in $15.8&nbsp;million in 2010, coming second behind Georges Bank haddock among the region's 20 regulated bottom-dwelling [[groundfish]]. Data released in 2011 indicated that even closing the fishery would not allow populations to rebound by 2014 to levels required under US federal law. Restrictions on cod effectively limit fishing on other groundfish species with which the cod swim, such as [[flounder]] and haddock.<ref name="Press">{{cite news |author=The Associated Press |title=Cod Fishermen's Alarm Outlasts Reprieve on Catch Limits |work=The New York Times |date=12 February 2012 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/us/cod-fishermens-alarm-outlasts-reprieve-on-catch-limits.html}}</ref>