Warming Oceans Drive East Coast Fish to Cooler Waters
Source
ReflectionThe main reason why I chose this article was the fact that this is a problem that mainly affects us. The whole reason why the fish are moving in the first place is because they want a cooler habitat. The reason why their current habitat is becoming hotter and hotter is because of us and how we are polluting the earth. This is just another affect that humans have on the environment and this is one of the consequences of our actions. Now with the fish moving habitats, fisheries will have a harder time staying afloat. This is not a problem on the environment but just an affect that we have on the environment. If we stop hurting the environment then the animals that are getting affected might not take such drastic actions to try and take care of themselves.
What's Next?In terms of the fish starting to migrate, there are many actions we can take. For example, the entire reason why the fish are moving to a different habitat is because they want to move to cooler waters. This is because the current water they are living in is becoming hotter. This is because of the increase in climate that us humans are doing to our own planet. To stop the ocean from becoming warmer, we must try and stop our climate from getting hotter. This includes reducing greenhouse gases, finding alternative clean energy, etc. As for the fisheries that are becoming the most affected by this problem, they can adapt their method of catching fish so they can account for how they are moving habitats. They can find alternate management strategies under different climate and ocean scenarios as well as improving near-term forecasts.
|
SummaryBecause of the recent climate change, Young East Coast fish are moving to more cooler water. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been charting these fishes movements and they have noticed that the spawning of fish occur in different habitats and little is known about how that will impact the change in the environment of fish development. Harvey Walsh has discovered that both the occurrence and distribution of fish larvae had changed in the east coast in the last 40 years. Other researchers within the NOAA have revealed that 43% of larval taxa and 50% of adult taxa have shifted in the distribution. Their movement seemed to be north along the continental shift but some species movements were unique to them. Other researchers have found that 49% of the fish larvae and adults, the timing of the larval occurrence had shifted. In 60% of the taxa, the movements between the adults and larvae were out of sync with each other. They also found that spring spawners were spawning pre-maturely. The fact that these fish (old and young) are starting to change habitats could become a big problem for fisheries. Stock assessments of fish population currently does not have climate change as a factor and focus on the size and variability of past populations in that area. Because of these fish moving onto different habitats, past populations will become a less reliable variable to study.
|