French fishermen: Cod preying on high-value stocks

The 75 members of Boulogne fishermen’s cooperative CME -- around half of which run trawlers -- are finding the high cod levels are eating into stocks of the other 40 species they fish, yet the European Commission would like to reduce cod quotas to zero.

“This is a mad situation that we are in... cod are so abundant on all of our grounds,” Vincent Touloumon, president of CME, told IntraFish sister publication Fishing News International.

“We are sure that we are losing red mullet and cuttlefish -- both of which are high-value species -- to cod that are preying on them."

Fishermen