Cod: The Ecological History of the Atlantic Fisheries

Автор: George A. Rose
Название: Cod: The Ecological History of the Atlantic Fisheries
Издательство: Breakwater Books
Год : 2008
Страниц: 578
ISBN: 1550812270 , 1550812254
Формат: pdf
Размер: 184 Мб
Язык: английский
Качество: хорошее
There are places and species that have become inextricably linked in human history and in the human mind have taken on mythic proportions. This is not to say that these same species occur nowhere else, or that they are the most abundant or important, although they may be. But somehow the animal comes to symbolize and define the place.
In this way, the wildebeest symbolizes the Serengeti Plains of Tanzania, the polar bear the Arctic, finches the Galapagos Islands, the panda China, and wild salmon the northern regions of the Pacific Ocean. But there is no stronger definition, no stronger attachment or symbolism, than Newfoundland and Labrador with the Atlantic cod.
Even now, with the cod almost gone, the knot holds. Defying economic rationalization, many fishermen remain more excited catching one cod worth two dollars than tonnes of crab worth thousands. They catch crab but dream of cod. This is why the decline of the once vast and seemingly boundless Newfoundland cod fishery in the late 1900s, after 500 years of fisheries that drove European economies and fed millions, has not only devastated a marine economy but perhaps more importantly, debased a unique culture.