Scientific name:
Gadus morhua

Natural spread:
North sea, Baltic sea

as one of the biggest codfish-fish reaches lengths of 100 cm the codfish with weights by 15 kg. The biggest copies, that were caught at Iceland, reached 150-165 cm and were heavy 25-43 kg. The youth-form as well as the coast-forms of the north and Baltic sea are called codfish, the spawn-ripe open sea-fish is called codfish.

Spread and races As habitat of the codfish, the shelf-areas can be regarded on both sides of the North-Atlantic. Here, the fish is found between 40 and 250 m and in water-temperatures between 2 and 7 °C preferably. In the coast-areas of the north and Baltic sea, however, it lives also in the flat water and with higher temperatures until 16 °C. It is to be realized easily that different races developed at such a big spread-area with different life-conditions. The economically most important codfish-races are found between Norway and the Barentssee, between Iceland and East-Greenland as well as before west-Greenland, Labrador and Newfoundland. The forms of the North sea, the west-British coast-areas and the dwarf-codfish of the Baltic sea hardly includes 10 percent of the total-continuance.

Way of life As gluttonous robber, the codfish of all, which it can carry off at the ground and in the free water, eats: Fish, cancers, mollusks, worms. Strong years at young-codfishes advance into the cotton wool-areas of the North sea and the estuaries in dense swarms occasionally and live almost exclusively from North Sea*-shrimps ("garnet"). The full-grown fish also undertake food-hikes; moreover, they visit during the spawn-time of the spring of determined spawn-places, that is in approximately 100 m of depth mostly. Each female spawns 3-9 million eggs, that immediately are inseminated by the male and hover freely in the water, from there-drives. After 2 - 4 weeks, 5 mm long larvae, who live during its development of the young-fish of plankton, hatch approximately. The North Sea*-codfish with 4-5 years becomes sexually mature, the big Atlantic races only with 8-12 years. its maximum-age is with approximately 30 years.

Economic meaning Beside herrings and red-perches, the codfish is the most important energy-supplier from the sea. it comes newly with us or deep-frozen as fillet on the market, in the northern countries, it is dried (stick-fish) still today or is salted and is dried (Klippfish). The codfish-liver delivers a high-quality cod-liver oil, that rich in the vitamins An and D is. the catch-quantity of 2 Mill amounted to 1986 world-wide. Tons, with what Canada and Iceland landed the biggest catches. The Federal Republic of Germany was involved at this catch-quantity with 40 000 tons.

Danger of the Ãœberfishung Through the high-specialized catch-technology and the fishery-competition of the states among each other, the catch-quantities exceeded the justifiable measurement for years. As example for it, the arktonorwegische codfish-race should be named. Here, the strong year 1970 became in the years 1973 and 1974, therefore still before achievement the sexually mature, so strongly befisht (170 000 instead of otherwise 100 000 tons), that it had vanished from 1976 without having propagated. Today, annual maximum-catch-quotas are fixed, that cannot meet the demand for Germany. Open sea-fishery and fish-industry are solicitous to avoid (blue Wittling, Blauleng, hake, grenadier-fish) on substitute-types with the codfish-fish.