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Hunter Cutting

New England fisheries hit hard by warming waters - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm

climate change impact oceans fisheries fish species USA New England eyewitness

shared by Hunter Cutting on 14 Jul 10 - Cached
  • A 2007 study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration looked at codfish catch records over four decades. It concluded what fishermen who know this cold-loving fish would have predicted: As the bottom water temperature increased, the probability of catching a cod decreased.
  • Last year, a federal effort to coordinate research, the U.S. Global Change Research Program, found ocean warming already was forcing a migration of some species.
  • "The northward shifts we have seen in the area are due in part to climate change. We are starting to see some of the effects of global climate change in our area," said Janet Nye, a NOAA researcher working out of Woods Hole, Mass. She studied historical fish records and found that of 36 northwest Atlantic species, almost half had moved northward in 40 years as water temperatures warmed. She predicted the traditional stocks of cold-water fish are likely to be replaced by croaker and red hake, fish normally found farther south.
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  • Many fishermen switched to lobster as winter flounder, a cold-water fish once abundant in fishing boat holds, declined. But lobster stocks are stressed in some areas now. Biologists on a multi-state Fisheries Commission committee have found that warmer waters, disease and fishing have depleted lobster stocks, and they recently recommended a five-year ban on lobstering from Cape Cod to Virginia.
  • "One of the grim realities of global warming is that it is bringing change to fisheries. There are going to be regime changes in the oceans and management is going to have to adapt to that,"
  • Greg Walinski believes he has seen first-hand the workings of warmer waters on fish stock. The 53-year-old Cape Cod fisherman used to hunt for large bluefin tuna. "In the '80s and '90s we would get 60 to 80 giant bluefin in a season," he said. "But we started to see less and less. It got to a point where it wasn't even worth going out. Most of the big fish are up in Canada," he said. "We get the little bluefin that used to be further south."
  • He switched to cod, but in what seems to be a repeat of the pattern, Walinski said he finds himself chasing the fish further and further out. He now travels 120 miles in a 35-foot boat - an arduous and somewhat dangerous commute - to reach Georges Bank for codfish.
  • regulators say they have seen little evidence of a similar rebound in cod on the George's Bank, and some other cold-water species, like winter flounder and pollock, remain low.
Hunter Cutting

Mercury Levels In Arctic Seals May Be Linked To Global Warming - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...090504165950.htm

climate change impact Arctic sea ice Arctic species seals

shared by Hunter Cutting on 14 Jun 10 - Cached
  • high mercury levels in certain Arctic seals appear to be linked to vanishing sea ice caused by global warming.
  • The scientists analyzed the mercury content in muscle samples collected from ringed seals between 1973 and 2007. They then compared the levels to the length of the so-called "summer ice-free season," a warm period marked by vanishing sea ice in the seals' habitat. They found that the seals accumulated more mercury during both short (2 months) and long (5 months) ice-free seasons and postulate that this is related to the seals' food supplies. Higher seal mercury concentrations may follow relatively short ice-free seasons due to consumption of older, more highly contaminated Arctic cod while relatively long ice-free seasons may promote higher pelagic productivity and thus increased survival and abundance of Arctic cod with the overall result of more fish consumption and greater exposure to mercury. Longer ice-free seasons resulting from a warming Arctic may therefore result in higher mercury levels in ringed seal populations as well as their predators (polar bears and humans).
  • Hunter Cutting on 14 Jun 10
     
    Science Daily
Hunter Cutting

Increasing fish stocks in northern North Sea: fisherman - 0 views

fishnewseu.com/...-climate-change-warns-msp.html

fisheries Cod North Sea Scotland species oceans eyewitness

shared by Hunter Cutting on 02 Aug 10 - Cached
  • LIBERAL Democrat Fisheries spokesman and MSP for Orkney Liam McArthur is seeking assurances from the Scottish Government that fisheries scientists and others involved in establishing fish quotas do not penalise fishermen for stock reductions caused by climate change. Research by the Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership shows climate change is causing some fish species’ distributions to move north, with some stocks having moved as much as 400 km north over the past 30 years.
  • McArthur said: “The reports from fishermen of increasing stocks of cod in the northern North Sea appear compatible with the results of this research. Indeed, the findings of this report further highlight how complex this issue really is.
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