Pacific Cod (Gadus macrocephalus) is a relatively short-lived, fast-growing member of the family Gadidae. Other common names in British Columbia (BC) include Grey Cod and Gray Cod. Populations of Pacific Cod are distributed from California, through waters off BC, the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea to Russia, Korea, Japan and China. In western Pacific, cod occurs in the North Pacific from Yellow Sea to the Bering Strait and is rare in the southern part of its range (DFO 2015).

Pacific Cod are demersal spawners, with spawning most likely occurring from February to March. Estimated population dynamics of Pacific Cod in BC have been characterized by large apparent variations in abundance since the 1950s. Recent genetic analyses have identified a distinction between North American and Asian Pacific Cod populations (DFO 2015).

In Japan, Pacific cod have been separated into three separate management regions: the Sea of Japan, Hokkaido, and the North Pacific off of Honshu, with the majority catch supported by vessels in South Hokkaido and the North Pacific off of Honshu. Capture is achieved mostly by Danish seines, bottom trawls, bottom longlines, gillnets, and trap nets (Chen 2014).