Cod in crisis Populations plummet as warming seas disrupt spawning

Guðrún Bjarnadóttir Bech sings to herself while she sorts through baby fish with a pair of tweezers. "Ding! Ding! Ding!" she suddenly bursts out. "That's a plaice," she says her reaction testament to how few she sees.

- Regin Winther

It is 2021 and Bech is working onboard the Jákup Sverri, a Faroese marine research ship that is trawling for juvenile fish around the Faroe Islands in the north Atlantic to assess the state of populations including haddock, sand eel and Norway pout.

But there is one juvenile the scientists onboard are desperate to find: cod. The babies are minute, each measuring between 2mm and 25mm (0.08in to lin). The smaller the individual, the more difficult it is to distinguish between different species. But as cod grow, their eyes and heads get bigger, and their skin turns grey-green.

Two decades ago, cod numbers were such that the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea recommended fishing up to 32,000 tonnes in the Faroe Shelf. In 2023, populations are so small the council has advised no fishing for two years.