Canada's East Coast cod fishery, which was once feared to have nearly disappeared in the early 1990s, is showing early signs of recovery, scientists say.

Oceanographer Kenneth Frank told CTV's Canada AM on Thursday that it's taken a long time for the fish stock to rebound and at one point scientists almost gave up hope, believing the species would never return. However, a team of researchers led by Frank at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth, N.S., reported on Wednesday in the journal Nature that cod, along with other groundfish such as pollock and haddock are slowly making a comeback.

"The conditions now are more favourable than we've seen in the past 20 years to support or sustain a future recovery," Frank said of the Eastern Scotian Shelf waters.

Part of that rebound can be attributed to the decline of so-called forage fish, or prey fish, such as herring and capelin that were devouring on groundfish eggs, Frank said.

"What happened was that when cod collapsed, it set off a chain of effects throughout the food chain so that the system of production favoured the domination of other species, primary the former prey of cod such as herring … they became the dominant fish in the ecosystem at the time."

For centuries, the cod population was an abundant fish stock off the East Coast waters, but in the early 1990s, overfishing and environmental changes brought upon a collapse in cod stock, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans states. As a result, a moratorium was placed on cod fishing in 1993. The hope was that if nets were kept out of the water for a few years, cod and other groundfish would eventually bounce back. Eighteen years later, results from Frank's study are heartening signs that Canada's eastern fishing stock are returning.

Frank said cod in other parts of the Eastern Coast are also showing early signs of recovery. He said on Southern Grand Banks, off of Newfoundland, scientists have documented some encouraging signs of revival.

Frank cautioned however that these early signs of improvement should not necessarily mean a recommencement of full-scale fishing in the East Coast region. He said the study should "iniate more in depth review of the cod stock, bring the fishing industry in to examine and contribute to the overall assessment."

"So it would be a go-slow approach than a gearing up to a resume a full-scale fishery," he said.