The Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries said it has started to work on changes to its technical regulations to create a different approach for how it handles escapes from cod aquaculture operations.
Cod farms have repeatedly reported escapes since the industry restarted following its decline in the late 2000s. Escape sizes vary, from small tears to mass escapes of thousands of cod, with the directorate recently reporting an escape of 14,000 farmed cod from Kime Akva’s facility in Ibestad Municipality at the end of November 2025.
According to the directorate, the big issue is that its escape regulations are largely based on salmon – which is a different species that exhibits different behaviors. The directorate said escaped farmed salmon tend to migrate up rivers to spawn, where they congregate and can be targeted for removal by companies.
Farmed cod does not behave in the same way and instead tends to disperse and rapidly mix with wild cod.
“The risk is that too little farmed cod is caught and too much wild fish is caught. The result could be low recapture, high bycatch, and poor resource management,” Norway Fisheries Director Frank Bakke-Jensen said in a release.
Norway said it expects cod farmers to have rapid and targeted recapture plans for when an escape occurs, with prepared routines and contingency agreements with commercial fishermen who can respond to the issues rapidly.
“This is common practice in salmon farming, and we expect the same from the cod-farming industry” the Directorate of Fisheries said.
The directorate also said that the current regulations are not “fully adapted” to farmed cod.
“The Marine Resources Act poses challenges related to, among other things, minimum sizes, gear use, bycatch, delivery obligations, and discard bans,” the directorate said. “We have, therefore, started work to clean up and propose more effective solutions.”
The directorate also said that cod’s different biology – including its ability to bite into nets – increase the risk of escape, something that it will address with updates to technical regulations that include requirements that nets are adapted specifically to cod.
Early maturation and spawning in cages is also an issue for the industry. The Directorate of Fisheries released a report in 2025 finding cod farms continued to struggle with the problem throughout 2024 and 2025 and introduced regulatory changes to carry additional requirements to prevent the issues.
“It is now crucial that the industry follows up on the new requirements because escaped farmed cod is a serious problem, but salmon recipes do not solve cod problems,” the Directorate of Fisheries said.
