Too little, too late: the desperate search for cod babies

A scientist holds a juvenile cod with a pair of tweezers. Studies show they do not spawn in waters warmer than 9.6C but reproduction is affected before that point. All photographs: Regin Winther Poulsen Photograph: Regin Winther Poulsen

Guðrún Bjarnadóttir Bech sings to herself while she sorts through baby fish with a pair of tweezers. “Ding! Ding! Ding!” she suddenly bursts out. “That’s a plaice,” she says – her reaction testament to how few she sees.

It is 2021 and Bech is working onboard the Jákup Sverri, a Faroese marine research ship that’s trawling for juvenile fish around the Faroe Islands in the north Atlantic to assess the state of populations including haddock, sand eel and Norwegian pout.