Earth Equity News

Warming Atlantic Driving Traditional New England Fish Further from Shore. By Clarke Canfield, AP, November 12, 2009. "Fishermen have known for years that they've had to steam farther and farther from shore to find the cod, haddock and winter flounder that typically fill dinner plates in New England. A new federal study documenting the warming waters of the North Atlantic confirms that they're right... That temperature rise doesn't sound like much -- less than half a degree Fahrenheit, on average -- but it's been enough to cause fish to slowly move to areas with temperatures more to their liking... Among commercial species, movements of more than 100 miles were observed for southern stocks of yellowtail flounder and red hake, as well as American shad and alewives. Some fish exhibited little movement to the north, but rather moved to deeper waters where temperatures are lower, according to the report. Small-boat fishermen on Cape Cod caught most of their haddock and flounder, as well as the peninsula's namesake fish, in waters close to shore 20 years ago, said Tom Dempsey, of the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen's Association. Nowadays, they have to travel as far 100 miles offshore to find those same fish, he said. At the same time, he said, Massachusetts fishermen are catching more fish traditionally found in the Middle Atlantic -- Atlantic croaker, in particular, usually caught off Virginia and North Carolina."