Cod Wars Cod Wars The Cod Wars (, "the cod wars", or "Landhelgisstríðin", "the wars for the territorial waters") were a series of confrontations between the United Kingdom and Iceland on fishing rights in the North Atlantic. Each of the disputes ended with an Icelandic victory. The Third Cod War concluded in 1976, with a highly favourable agreement for Iceland; the United Kingdom conceded to a Icelandic exclusive fishery zone after threats that Iceland would withdraw from NATO, which would have forfeited NATO's access to most of the GIUK gap, a critical anti-submarine warfare during the Cold War. As a result, British
Cod fishing in Newfoundland food source contributed to a decrease in the Beothuk population. Beothuk numbers began to dwindle rapidly due to a combination of factors directly relating to European, Inuit and Mi'kmaq migration, and by the 19th Century, the tribe no longer existed. After his voyage in 1497, John Cabot's crew reported that the sea there is full of fish that can be taken not only with nets but with fishing-baskets. and around 1600 English fishing captains still reported cod shoals so thick by the shore that we hardly have been able to row a boat through them. In the early sixteenth century,