News / Fishermen faced with ‘potential ruination’ over cod quota decision
LOCAL fishermen say they are “faced with the potential ruination of their livelihoods” after scientists recommended “zero catch” quotas for cod next year.
Shetland Fishermen’s Association (SFA) called the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) announcement “outrageous”, and have called for cod quotas to be maintained at 2025 levels.
ICES has advised a zero catch North Sea cod quota for 2026 in response to ongoing uncertainties in the stock, saying that everything but accidental bycatch should be stopped to ensure the safety of the species.
But the SFA rallied hard against the announcement, with chairman James Anderson calling it “fleet-ending madness”.
Anderson, who is also skipper of the whitefish vessel Alison Kay, said that governments could not expect boats “surrounded by cod” to tie up for a year and still be in business at the end of it.
“Fishing crews in Shetland do not believe that further quota reductions would do anything to encourage growth in the cod stock,” he said.
“So we are proposing a series of measures which will more successfully balance stock sustainability and economic stability – until the various scientific uncertainties around cod are better resolved.”
The Shetland proposal includes extended spawning ground closures across the North Sea to protect juvenile cod and voluntary 30 per cent total allowable catch reductions for haddock and whiting.
They have also offered to double the scientific quota available for cod studies through “industry contribution”.
The SFA said this would “help resolve the scientific uncertainties which plague the Northern Shelf cod stock assessment”.
“We hear a lot from governments about following the best available scientific advice, but – when there is only one source of scientific advice, and that advice is unreliable – there is danger in proceeding on the basis of uncertainty,” said SFA executive officer Daniel Lawson.
“Following such extreme advice, littered with uncertainties and assumptions as it is, would be an irresponsible and hugely damaging thing for governments to do.”
The association has warned that drastic cuts would “devastate North Sea fishing communities, particularly in Scotland”.
The SFA has urged theUK, EU, and Norwegian governments to take a balanced approach that “prioritises evidence, sustainability, and socio-economic stability over irrational and uncertain stock advice”.
Scottish Fishermen’s Federation chief executive Elspeth Macdonald also strongly criticised the ICES announcement this week.
“At a time when the industry is facing multiple and growing pressures as our seas become ever more crowded, ministers will need to make pragmatic decisions about the reliability of ICES’ advice, which, in attempting to move forwards, is actually taking us backwards,” she claimed.
“ICES has tied itself in knots around the level of mixing between the sub-stocks and rather than trying to solve their own problems, they have overstepped again into management considerations, forgetting that their role is to improve knowledge and leave management to those who understand the consequences of taking certain decisions.
“The glacial pace at which ICES is moving towards improving the knowledge and understanding the sub-stocks’ dynamics, the performance of the model used and the advice they produce is unacceptably slow, and as usual is affected by cumbersome and obsolete set of processes.”
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