Exploitation: Cod is Fish and Fish is Cod

Cod fishing on a larger scale almost certainly first occurred in Scandinavia with farmer-fishermen who reportedly had 'one green foot and one blue foot'. The Viking Age coincides with the 'fish horizon event', in which an abrupt increase in marine fish consumption occurred in Europe. Air-dried cod, or stockfish, would become the first cod product to be widely traded. Stockfish could be produced relatively cheaply off the Lofoten Islands and could be transported and rehydrated easily. Iceland was settled during the Viking expansion in the ninth century. The spatial basis of stock assessment is the geographical range of the stock or stock complex - the area within which the cod spawns, feeds, and carries out its complete life cycle. Cod population dynamics were first described using Schaeffer-type models, whose varieties are also known as Surplus Production or Biomass Dynamic models. The notions of variable productivity underpin fisheries science and all rational harvesting strategies.