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Topic

The Salt Cod Saga: Examining Drivers of Decline in the Pacific cod Fishery (1915-1940)

School of Environmental Studies

Date & location

• Friday, September 13, 2024

• 1:00 P.M.

• David Turpin Building

• Room B255

Reviewers

Supervisory Committee

• Dr. Loren McClenachan, School of Environmental Studies, ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø (Supervisor)

• Dr. Jason Colby, Department of History, UVic (Outside Member) 

External Examiner

• Dr. Iain McKechnie, Department of Anthropology, UVic 

Chair of Oral Examination

• Dr. Andrea McKenzie, Department of History, UVic 

Abstract

Historical marine ecology and the environmental history of fisheries focus on reconstructing past fisheries to illuminate ecological changes and human-ocean relationships. However, much of the existing scholarship focuses on prominent fisheries that had lasting economic and cultural impacts long after their collapses. In contrast, less attention has been given to fisheries that did not achieve global prominence, like the historical Pacific salt cod fishery in the early 20^th century. The success or failure of fisheries can be attributed to numerous ecological and social factors, but fisheries research has largely been conducted from separate disciplinary perspectives. Recently, however, this research has been increasingly conducted with the understanding that ecological and social factors influence one another. The Pacific cod fishery’s operations rose and fell in the shadow of the dominant global product, Atlantic cod, and never attained parallel importance economically or culturally. As such, this fishery is an example of an understudied, unsuccessful fishery. In the 1930s, landings in the Pacific salt cod fishery were declining, but due to its limited importance, the drivers behind this decline have yet to be formally assessed.

This research investigates the sociopolitical drivers of decline behind the 20th-century Pacific salt cod fishery’s collapse and produces evidence of changing relative abundance of Pacific cod during the fishery’s existence. Using the historical fishery journal Pacific Fisherman, which provided contemporary observations of fishery operations, this research reveals that limited markets, shifting consumer preferences, and high operation costs constrained the fishery’s ability to mechanize and compete within a changing societal landscape. Additionally, localized depletions and a trend of declining fish body size occurred within the salt cod fishery’s lifespan. The findings indicate that the fishery's failure was significantly influenced by its societal, political and temporal context, as the salt cod era waned while other fisheries progressed through industrialization. This thesis fills the former gap in the literature on the drivers of decline in the historical Pacific cod fishery and adds to the growing literature on lesser-studied fisheries, particularly those that were pre-industrial but still commercial. In addition, this research provides key takeaways on fisheries for which historical data are scarce, providing important insights into the value of reconstructing the past.