Altantic cod
The Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) is a well-known foodfish belonging to the family Gadidae. It grows to two metres (6 1/2 feet) in length. In the western Atlantic Ocean it has a distribution north of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and round both coasts of Greenland; in the eastern Atlantic it is found from the Bay of Biscay north to the Barents Sea, including in the North Sea, and around Iceland.
Formerly very numerous, this species has been heavily overfished throughout its range, resulting in a crash in the fishery in the United States and Canada and in western Europe. The fishery has yet to recover, and may not recover at all because of a possibly stable change in the food web. European Union cod fishing quotas have repeatedly been reduced, and some scientists are now calling for a total moratorium on cod fishing in the waters around the British Isles. The IUCN lists the species as vulnerable.
Colouring is brown to green on the dorsal side, shading to silver ventrally. Its habitat ranges from the shoreline down to the continental shelf. Northwestern Atlantic populations spawn in the winter and spring in the Cape Cod region in a location called Georges Bank.
See also: Cod, Gadus, Cod War
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