Cod Wars 30,000 tons. While Iceland came closest to withdrawing from NATO and expelling US forces in the Second Cod War, Iceland actually took the most serious action in all of the Cod Wars in the Third Cod War by ending diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom on 19 February 1976. Although Icelandic government was firmly pro-Western, the government linked Iceland's NATO membership with the outcomes of the fishery dispute. If a favorable outcome could not be reached, Iceland implied that it would withdraw from NATO. However, the government never explicitly linked the US Defence Agreement to the outcome of the dispute.
Cod fisheries needed and areas where opposite observations were gaining press attention. In effect, DFO's opposition to a listing compromised its ability to carry out its conservation mandate. The ban on Canadian cod fishing was partly lifted in 1997 by the Minister for DFO just ten days prior to a federal election, despite that independent Canadian scientists and the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea doubted there had been sufficient recovery. In general, depleted populations of cod and other gadids do not appear to recover easily when fishing pressure is reduced or stopped. In 2003, COSEWIC in an update designated