Nearly half of the United Kingdom’s most commercially valuable fish populations are either overexploited, critically low or both, according to a new report warning that the government continues to set catch limits above scientific advice.
The report, “Deep Decline,” by conservation nonprofit Oceana UK, found that 17 of 105 U.K. fish stocks are both overfished and overexploited. Another five stocks, including haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus) and saithe (or pollock, Pollachius virens), were considered healthy in 2023 but have since been downgraded.
“The UK’s action to end overfishing has been inconsistent at best and absent at worst,” the report’s authors wrote. “Urgent management action is needed to reduce fishing pressure to avoid the risk of stock collapse and the wider impacts that accompany such a shift in the ecosystem.”
North Sea cod (also known as Atlantic cod, Gadus morhua), a staple in Britain’s beloved fish-and-chips, has suffered one of the steepest declines. In September, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) recommended a zero-catch limit for 2026, down from 15,000 metric tons in 2025, to allow stock recovery.
According to a Mongabay analysis of ICES data, from 2015 to 2025,spawning biomass fell by 61.5% in the cod’s southern population and 38% and 23% in northwestern and Viking populations, respectively.
“North Sea cod is now among the worst-performing, with continued overexploitation in full knowledge that the population is in a critical state,” the Oceana report said.
Michel Kaiser, professor of fisheries conservation at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland, said the northern subpopulations could still be fished sustainably, though ICES recommends a total pause because the extent of mixing between populations is uncertain.
Kaiser added that the report overlooks some positive news, as eight out of the top 10 stocks are healthy. “That is a good thing and will have been achieved through good management, compliance and solid scientific advice.”
The U.K. government sets total allowable catch limits, or TACs, but Oceana found that quotas are often set above scientific recommendations. An independent audit found that only 46% of 79 U.K. TACs were in line with scientific guidance from 2024-25.
“The government has excellent fisheries science at its fingertips, and even when data are scarce, the course to restoration is clear,” Callum Roberts, professor of marine conservation at the University of Exeter, U.K., wrote in a foreword to Oceana’s report. “Fishing must be respectful of the ecosystem, not a process of brute extraction.”
Defra, the U.K.’s fishing authority, told Mongabay it is working with the fishing industry to manage stocks sustainably and may implement new catch limits in 2026.
“We are currently considering options for setting 2026 catch limits across all stocks and what further management measures may be needed,” a Defra spokesperson wrote in an email. “Whatever we do will be based on the best available scientific advice.”
Banner image: Washed-up North Sea cod in Haroldswick, Scotland. Image courtesy of Mike Pennington (CC BY-SA 2.0).
This story first appeared on Mongabay
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and Mongabay, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.
