Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Start of the Pre-Season
Monday, May 14, 2012
The Size of Cod
On a recent trip to the Portsmouth, N.H. visitor center, I came across a display which handily illustrates something I refer to frequently on my tours of Pioneer Village; The size of codfish in the 17th century.
Fish, and particularly codfish, were the main reason Europeans including English Puritans first started coming to this continent. Economic, not religious reasons drove men to risk life and limb in a new land. The rich fishing grounds off of George's and Stellwagen banks were the home to many types of valuable fish, but none were more plentiful, or profitable as the codfish.
On my tour I often make the claim that codfish grew as big as the some of the people on my tour. This is generally greeted with some skepticism. However, there were many instances of the "king" cod, an enourmous fish that reached sizes of 120lbs or more. Here is the proof. The skull of one of those monster cod.
My lovely wife is standing next to it for scale. As you can see, it's skull is bigger than my wife's head.
Here is a detail of the skull.
This fish formed the cornerstone of the early colonial economy. The fish were caught, dried, salted, packed into barrels, and sold in Europe and the Caribbean. The depressing thing is that the cod stocks that fueled the settling and expansion of the New England colonies, are now seriously depleted to the point that cod no longer grow to this size. In fact , the average size of the codfish has shrunk as the size of the catch has decreased. In other words, the fishing grounds of New England are so overfished, that the cod themselves have become smaller. They just don't get a chance to grow to the enormous size they once did. This is illustrated by the display below.
The fish on the left is the average size of a cod in the mid-1600's. It is three feet long and weighs approximately 22 lbs. Compare that with the modern codfish, which only weighs about 6 lbs, and is about two-thirds the length. Although still a large fish, it is nowhere near the size and abundance that greeted our ancestors. Will we ever see another "King" cod again?
Fish, and particularly codfish, were the main reason Europeans including English Puritans first started coming to this continent. Economic, not religious reasons drove men to risk life and limb in a new land. The rich fishing grounds off of George's and Stellwagen banks were the home to many types of valuable fish, but none were more plentiful, or profitable as the codfish.
On my tour I often make the claim that codfish grew as big as the some of the people on my tour. This is generally greeted with some skepticism. However, there were many instances of the "king" cod, an enourmous fish that reached sizes of 120lbs or more. Here is the proof. The skull of one of those monster cod.
My lovely wife is standing next to it for scale. As you can see, it's skull is bigger than my wife's head.
Here is a detail of the skull.
This fish formed the cornerstone of the early colonial economy. The fish were caught, dried, salted, packed into barrels, and sold in Europe and the Caribbean. The depressing thing is that the cod stocks that fueled the settling and expansion of the New England colonies, are now seriously depleted to the point that cod no longer grow to this size. In fact , the average size of the codfish has shrunk as the size of the catch has decreased. In other words, the fishing grounds of New England are so overfished, that the cod themselves have become smaller. They just don't get a chance to grow to the enormous size they once did. This is illustrated by the display below.
The fish on the left is the average size of a cod in the mid-1600's. It is three feet long and weighs approximately 22 lbs. Compare that with the modern codfish, which only weighs about 6 lbs, and is about two-thirds the length. Although still a large fish, it is nowhere near the size and abundance that greeted our ancestors. Will we ever see another "King" cod again?
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