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Accepted Paper:
Historical ecology of the Pacific cod
Loren McClenachan
(University of Victoria)
The Pacific cod fishery has recently experienced collapse, which may have precedent in history. To evaluate long-term dynamics, we reconstruct the catch of Pacific cod from the 1860s and evaluated drivers of decline in a recent period of decline in the 1930s, providing insight into modern management
Paper long abstract:
In the Gulf of Alaska, a series of marine heat waves in the 2010s severely impacted Pacific cod (Gadus macrocephalus), the effect of which depleted biomass to the lowest abundance ever recorded and led to the fishery’s closure in 2020. While the Pacific cod fishery is currently the second largest fishery in Alaska and is widely considered as one of the best-managed fisheries globally, this collapse may have precedent in history. Traditional knowledge holders refer to Pacific cod as “the fish that go,” which may be a reference to past periods of decline. In recent history, the 1930s is a period of reported decline in the fishery, and understanding the change that happened in this time period may provide insight into long-term dynamics of Pacific cod. This paper (a) reports on a fisheries catch reconstruction of Pacific cod since the 1860s which documents the period of decline in the 1930s, (b) evaluates possible social and ecological drivers of that decline in the 1930s, (c) places these historical dynamics into a modern management context. This historical archival work is part of a larger collaborative project involving historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, and managers, aiming to understand long-term dynamics of Pacific cod and the ways in which diverse types of historical information can be help to improve modern fisheries management.