Pacific Cod (Gadus macrocephalus)

• Pacific cod populations are abundant throughout their range; overfishing is not occurring.
• Pacific cod is often hailed as being one of the best managed fisheries in the world.
• Cod is a good source of low fat protein, phosphorus, niacin, and vitamin B12. For more on nutrition, see Nutrition Facts. (USDA)
• Over 96% of the cod harvested in the U.S. is Pacific cod.

Sustainability Status

Biomass: Gulf of Alaska biomass is 42% above the biomass needed to support maximum sustainable yield (B_MSY); Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands biomass is 10% above the biomass needed to support B_MSY; there are no estimates for Pacific coast biomass.*
Overfishing: No
Overfished: No
Fishing and habitat: : Pacific cod are harvested with bottom and pelagic trawls, long lines (hook and line), and pots (or traps). These gear types contact the seafloor across the many different habitats of Pacific cod such as mud, sand, and gravel substrates. Gear can impact habitat in areas where cod are associated with living structural habitats, like corals and sea whips. The higher the relief and the older the structure is, the longer the recovery period is for these living structures. In areas where living structure is absent or the species is more resilient to the interaction (because it's more flexible or faster growing), the effect is thought to be less significant.
Bycatch: The major species caught as bycatch are grenadier, sculpins, miscellaneous fish, shark, sea star, skates, and seabirds (including northern fulmar, shearwater, black-footed albatross, Laysan albatross, and short-tailed albatross). New flatfish trawl net designs are being tried in efforts to reduce bycatch of rockfish. There has also been some success in devising measures to mitigate fishery-seabird interactions.
Aquaculture: None

*Cod on the Pacific coast is not assessed. Harvest guidelines are based on relatively recent historical harvest with a precautionary 50% reduction (based on the Groundfish FMP harvest policy for unassessed stocks).

Science and Management

Off the West Coast, Pacific cod is one of over 90 species of groundfish managed by the Pacific Fishery Management Council through its Groundfish Fishery Management Plan (FMP). Originally implemented in 1982, the FMP governs commercial and recreational fisheries in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) (waters 3 to 200 miles offshore) off of Washington, Oregon, and California. The FMP has been amended 20 times as of February 2007. FMP regulations and management measures are developed by the Council in cooperation with federal, state, and tribal governments, and in consultation with industry, environmental, and academic organizations. Groundfish are currently managed through a number of measures including harvest guidelines, quotas, trip and landing limits, area restrictions, depth restrictions, size limits, seasonal closures, and gear restrictions. Because of the need to rebuild the groundfish species that have been declared overfished, the overall groundfish harvest has been significantly reduced. The Council has called for sharp reductions in fleet capacity across all sectors of the commercial groundfish fishery in order to ensure that West Coast groundfish resources are fished sustainably while making the groundfish fleets more economically viable.

Pacific cod fisheries off Alaska are managed under the North Pacific Fishery Management Council's Groundfish Fishery Management Plans (FMPs) for the Bering Sea Aleutian Islands (BSAI) and the Gulf of Alaska (GOA) management areas. Although these stocks are genetically indistinguishable and have been shown to travel between both management areas, they are managed as separate units. The GOA FMP was originally implemented in 1978 and has been amended over 60 times since; the BSAI FMP was originally implemented in 1982 and has been amended over 70 times. The most recent versions of both FMPs focus on the management of fully domestic fisheries. Both plans currently control the Pacific cod fishery through permits and limited entry, catch quotas (TACs), gear restrictions, closed waters, seasons, bycatch limits and rates, and other management measures.

The Resource Assessment and Conservation Engineering Division of NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center conducts groundfish assessments, which include research on Pacific cod.

Life History and Habitat

Life history, including information on the habitat, growth, feeding, and reproduction of a species, is important because it affects how a fishery is managed. Very little is known about the habitat requirements of Pacific cod, particularly during their early life stages. More research to define nursery areas utilized by Pacific cod is one step being taken by fisheries scientists to further identify essential habitat and to monitor growth, survival, and subsequent recruitment to improve management efforts.

• Geographic range: In the North Pacific Ocean from Port Arthur, China, in the northern Yellow Sea, north around the Pacific Rim into the Bering Sea as far north as the Chukchi Sea, and south along the North American coast to Santa Monica Bay, California. Also found off the east coast of Japan from Tokyo Bay to northern Hokkaido, on the west coast of Japan in the Sea of Japan, and off the coasts of the Sakhalin and Kurile Islands. Pacific cod are rare in the southern part of their range.
• Habitat: Cod are demersal, living near the bottom, and concentrate on the shelf edge and upper slope (328 to 820 feet deep) in the winter and move to shallower waters (less than 328 feet deep) in the summer. Pacific cod have been found as deep as 2,871 feet. Adults and large juveniles prefer mud, sand, and clay habitats.
• Life span: Relatively short-lived with a maximum age of about 19 years
• Food: Clams, worms, crabs, shrimp, and juvenile fish
• Growth rate: Moderately fast growing
• Maximum size: Over 6 feet
• Reaches reproductive maturity: Females mature at a length of 2.2 feet and at about 6 years of age.
• Reproduction: Females have high reproductive potential - 2.2 foot-long cod will produce over 1 million eggs. Pacific cod are single batch spawners, releasing all of their ripe eggs in a single spawning event within a few minutes.
• Spawning season: From January through May, depending on location
• Spawning grounds: On the shelf edge and upper slope (328-820 feet deep)
• Migrations: Pacific cod are not considered to be migratory, but individual adults have been found to move more than 621 miles. Pacific cod also move seasonally from deep outer and upper shelf spawning areas to shallow middle-upper shelf feeding grounds. They are a schooling fish.
• Predators: Predators include halibut, sharks, seabirds, and marine mammals.
• Commercial or recreational interest: Both
• Distinguishing characteristics: Pacific cod are brown or grayish with dark spots or patterns on the sides and a paler belly. They have a long chin barbell (a whisker-like organ near the mouth like on catfish) and dusky fins with white edges.

Role in the Ecosystem

Pacific cod are an abundant fish resource within the Pacific and North Pacific Oceans and the Bering Sea. The removal of Pacific cod by fishing may affect the food chain by reducing the amount of Pacific cod available as prey to predators, as well as reducing predation pressure on species that Pacific cod eat. Another consideration is the effect that bottom contact gear may have on living structure.

Pacific cod is a major prey item for endangered Steller sea lions around Kodiak Island. There are concerns that the Pacific cod fishery depletes important sources of prey for Steller sea lions, as much of the area used by the fishery is designated as critical habitat for the endangered sea lion (because of the prey resources available within it). One objective of Pacific cod fishery management regulations is to minimize competition between locally intense fisheries and Steller sea lions.

Additional Information

Market names: Cod, Alaska cod
Vernacular names: Alaska cod, Grey cod, True cod, Treska
Other species are also marketed as cod.

Biomass

Biomass refers to the amount of Pacific cod in the ocean. Scientists cannot collect and weigh every single fish to determine biomass, so they use models to estimate it instead. These biomass estimates can help determine if a stock is being fished too heavily or if it may be able to tolerate more fishing pressure. Managers can then make appropriate changes in the regulations of the fishery.

Note: The 2001 Gulf of Alaska (GOA) survey did not cover the eastern GOA. The GOA is assessed in 2 and 3 year intervals.
Note: There are no biomass estimates for Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC)-managed cod as the cod on the Pacific coast is not assessed. Harvest specifications are based on relatively recent historical harvest with a precautionary 50% reduction (based on the PFMC Groundfish FMP harvest policy for unassessed stocks).

Landings

Landings refer to the amount of catch that is brought to land. Pacific cod accounted for almost 12% (252,644 tons/557 million pounds) of the total 2005 groundfish catch off Alaska, down about 6.6% from the previous year.

Note: The landings presented are domestic commercial landings.

Biomass and Landings

Are landings and biomass related? Landings are dependent on biomass, management measures in the fishery, and fishing effort.

Data sources:
Biomass from 2007 Assessment of the Pacific Cod Stock in the Eastern Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Area, 2007 Assessment of the Pacific Cod Stock in the Gulf of Alaska

Landings from NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service Annual Commercial Landings Statistics using "COD, PACIFIC" as Species and "PACIFIC BY STATE" as State

Important Dates

1955-1975 – Pacific cod fishery in Gulf of Alaska (GOA) is small, averaging around 3,000 tons (6.6 million pounds) per year; most of the catch is taken incidentally by foreign fleet fishing for other species
Early 1960s – Japanese longline fishery harvests Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands (BSAI) Pacific cod for the frozen fish market
1964 – Japanese trawl fishery for pollock expands, and cod becomes an important bycatch and occasional target species when high concentrations are detected
1967-1977 – Foreign catches of BSAI Pacific cod range from 30,000 to 70,000 tons (66 million to 154 million pounds)
1976 – Catches increase to 6,800 tons (15 million pounds) in GOA
1978 – GOA Fishery Management Plan (FMP) implemented
1981 – Foreign fishery in GOA peaks at 35,000 tons (77 million pounds)
1981 – Domestic fishery begins operations in the BSAI
1982 – BSAI FMP implemented; Pacific Coast Groundfish FMP implemented
1987 – Domestic fishery in the GOA increases more than three-fold to a catch of nearly 31,000 tons (68.3 million pounds) as the foreign fishery is eliminated
1989 – Domestic fishery dominant in BSAI
1991 – Domestic fishery displaces foreign and joint venture fisheries in BSAI
1994 – Amendment 6 to the Pacific Coast Groundfish FMP implements a license limitation program for vessels in the groundfish fishery
1994-2007 – Successive allocations of Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Pacific cod among an increasing number of trawl and non-trawl gear and processing sectors

Notes and Links

General Information:
Pacific Fishery Management Council Fact sheet on Groundfish

NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center Pacific cod research

North Pacific Fishery Management Council Groundfish of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Area: Species Profiles (2001)

North Pacific Fishery Management Council Groundfish of the Gulf of Alaska: a Species Profile (2001)

NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center Technical memorandum regarding Pacific cod

Fishery Management:
Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Management Plan, as amended through Amendment 19

Fishery Management Plan for Groundfish of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Management Area

Fishery Management Plan for Groundfish of the Gulf of Alaska

Stock Assessments:
2007 Assessment of the Pacific Cod Stock in the Eastern Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Area

2007 Assessment of the Pacific Cod Stock in the Gulf of Alaska