A team of researchers have revealed that after some studying, it’s been found that rising temperatures in the waters off northeastern Maine is killing a large number of codfish.
New England’s cod stocks are at 3%-4% of what is considered a sustainable level; they’re at the very brink of collapsing. The combination of overfishing and the increasingly warming waters unseen in any other body of water on the planet has caused a steep decline of the codfish reserve of the region. A full report of the findings can be found on the Science Journal.
These Waters Are Warming Faster Than Anywhere Else in the World
The findings report a warming rate 99% faster than anywhere else on the planet in just nine years, and they hypothesize it could be in part because of the changes in position of the Gulf Stream. All of this inevitably caused a decrease in cod offspring and a higher mortality rate; most of the younger fish don’t make it to adulthood. There were several restrictions put on cod fishing in 2010, but the rising ocean warming rate has made these efforts entirely futile.
Andrew Pershing, one of the study’s authors and chief scientific officer at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, writes that despite managers reducing quotas, the cod population continued to get lower and lower. He suggests that the warming waters made the region less hospitable for the fish, and the response was too late, making it impossible for management to measure up. It’s been 45 years since the decline of cod has been in observation, and there has been no change for the region.
Cod May Be Forced to Migrate
As a result of these developments, seen by fishermen and researchers alike, the price of cod in Main has risen exponentially, and most codfish served is either Norwegian or Irish. Through the years, the Atlantic cod has seen a rise and fall in population, and this marks a very steep low that could even compel cod to migrate and re-adapt to waters it is more comfortable with.
On an entirely different note, cod reserves in Canada are seeing an unexpected rebound. The number of fish found in Canadian waters has seen an unexpected rise, as reported this week. One can only hope the same can happen for the Gulf of Maine.
