The majority of people associated with the fishing industry will agree that climate change and ocean warming is real — oceanagraphic data from the around the world backs up the premise.
Scientists from around the globe have been studying the warming phenomena for some time and have been trying to predict its impact on the many species of fish off our shores.
And while those in the scientific community — even the newly muzzled ones in the United States — are primarily in agreement that this trend is expanding, they are also concurring that the whole issue is far more complex than anyone might have imagined.
Prior to the Donald Trump anti-climate change regime in Washington, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had done some excellent work in this field — suggesting future warming of ocean waters off the Northeast coast of North America may be greater and occurring at an even faster rate than previously projected.
The NOAA said that over the past 10 years, the Gulf of Maine has warmed faster than 99 per cent of the global ocean. Recent studies indicate that the enhanced warming is associated with a northerly shift in the Gulf Stream — noting that warming of three to four degrees Celsius are projected.The NOAA study also found that the warming of the upper 300 metres of the Northwest Atlantic increases salinity due to a change in water mass distribution related to a retreat of the colder, fresher Labrador Current and a northerly shift of the warmer, saltier Gulf Stream.
While there are many specific arguments over what is ultimately responsible for this increase in western Atlantic water temperatures, one thing is for certain; it is impacting the species living and spawning in these waters.
Many fishermen have been hypothesizing that lobsters are following the cooler water and crossing the U.S. border into Canadian waters.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has reported that the waters of southwestern Nova Scotia and the Bay of Fundy have experienced significant warming trends — which seem to coincide with the remarkable rise in lobster landings over the last few seasons — fishermen landing five times more lobster now than they did two decades ago.
DFO has reported that there is clearly a relationship between temperatures and population, but other factors are also involved in the remarkable rise in lobster landings, including a decrease in groundfish predators over the same period.
With a decade-long rise in temperatures, including record highs in 2012 and 2016, researchers at DFO laboratories in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are now studying the impact of warmer temperatures on lobster egg production, egg quality and moult timing.
Despite what appears to be concrete impacts of ocean warming in the Maritimes, the same can’t be said for the waters off Newfoundland. One could assume that the re-emergence of groundfish, particularly cod and decline in snow crab and Northern shrimp in the region has coincided with rising water temperatures. But things do not appear to be that cut and dry.
DFO scientist Dr. Pierre Pepin, as part of a recent technical briefing, said the Newfoundland Shelf appears to be bucking the ocean-warming trend.
He explained that at the time of the cod collapse in the early 1990s, Newfoundland waters were experiencing a severe cooling trend — with the lowest water temperatures on record measured in 1991. However, the water did start to warm after 2000, similar to what was witnessed in other areas of the east coast.
But unlike other data from around eastern North American waters, Newfoundland water temperatures took a tumble again from 2010-2015 — with 2015 reporting the seventh coldest water temperatures on record.
So, what does this trend mean?
Pepin says that the biomass of Atlantic cod, other key groundfish species and capelin have increased since the mid-2000s, but the stock biomass is still well below values from the 1980s. As well, he says that the abundance of Northern shrimp and snow crab have declined as a result of warming ocean conditions from the 1990s to present.
However, the big question that remains to be answered is whether the recent cooling trend will be beneficial to struggling shrimp and crab species and negatively impact the growth and rebounding of groundfish and capelin? This is the scientific query that literally could have multi-million dollar implications for the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery.
With the province’s two most lucrative fisheries suffering quota cuts over the last few years, good, sound research is more important than ever now.
This year, DFO announced a devastating 63 per cent cut to the inshore Northern shrimp quota in Fishing Area 6 — meaning the Total Allowable Catch for SFA 6 went from 48,196 tonnes in 2015 to 27,825 tonnes in 2016, to 10,400 tonnes announced for 2017. This amounts to a 78 per cent quota reduction over two years. On top of that, the 2017 snow crab total allowable catch (TAC) for Newfoundland and Labrador Region in 2017 was set at 35,419 tonnes, an overall quota level decrease of approximately 22 per cent from 2016.
Last May, DFO announced $197 million for the hiring of new scientists and technicians to replenish the beleaguered resources at the federal department.
As well, one of the programs currently under DFO’s purview is something called the Climate Change Adaption Program. One of the main activities associated with this program is species and coastal infrastructure vulnerability — advance understanding of the vulnerability of commercial species and their prey to the impacts of climate change and develop a strategy to incorporate this knowledge into fisheries stock assessments and fisheries management decisions.
This is obviously the type of study needed to deal with warming and fluctuating water temperatures, but the funding for this program is set to expire in 2017-18. Let’s hope that DFO, in its wisdom and newly invigorated science program, not only continues with such vital work as the Climate Change Adaption Program, but provides an open and two-way dialogue to expand the conversation between industry stakeholders and the scientific community.
