The alarm for the Baltic cod: Zombiefiskar full mask

"The alarm for the Baltic cod: ”Zombiefiskar” full mask"

"”Worse than ever – they are about to starve to death”"

"the Situation for cod in the Baltic sea is very critical. "

"The cod stocks which remain are very utmärglat and the life of the card. "

"– Cod in the Baltic sea looks terrible. They swim around on the bottom like zombies, " says Nils Höglund, responsible for fiskepolicy at the Coalition Clean Baltic."

"the Cod stock in the Baltic sea is heading towards collapse. Some 40 years ago fished it annually 400 000 tonnes of cod from the Baltic sea. Today is the annual catch was less than 20 000 tonnes."

"Never has the situation for the cod been this bad, according to Nils Höglund. "

"– the Cod swimming around on the sea bottom looking for food, but it is not growing. The cod we see today resembles not even a cod. It has a large head with a shriveled body that is skinny and steep stairs. They have the worm in the liver which enables it to become ill. They look simply terrible."

"' Never been this bad”"

"”Zombietorsken” are very long unlike how cod tends to be like. A normal cod to be bold and have a big belly. Scientists have studies also been able to see that it lives a much shorter time period than another cod."

"– It has never been this bad, the cod are starving to death. Researchers have noticed cod has been to try to understand what's going on with the growth. What you have seen so far is that you do not find the tagged cod which have lived longer than 400 to 500 days after the labelling. It is a scary figure when the end will be much older than that, " says Nils Höglund."

"For fishermen, it is no longer commercially viable to fish cod in the Baltic sea. There are simply no fish left and the cod that are left are pygméliknande. "

"One reason for this is believed to be the use of the trawl fishery. "

"– It is a complex situation in the Baltic sea is an ecosystem in imbalance. But these ”zombiefiskar” has arisen is in part due to fishing pressure has been too hard for too long. An effective trawling also takes small fish, a catch that you sedannslänger back because they are too small. State of the sea and an irresponsible trawling is doing to the stock will be stressed, " says Nils Höglund. "

"Extremely high mortality"

"the Reasons why the cod has been reduced so much in size is due to the playing and become sexually mature much earlier than before. Now can cod to spawn even when they are 20 centimeters. "

"– This was absolutely unthinkable a few years ago. A couple of years ago was the least 40 centimetres when they started playing. Now rushed the to play all of the previous in order to survive."

"Is there any estimate on how many of the cod that is ”zombies”?"

" I would say that the vast majority that remain are the ”zombies” or ”pygméfiskar”. What we have seen is that the mortality rate among them is extremely high. This is no small crisis. This is a complete collapse of cod in the Baltic sea and now need emergency measures promptly."