Jul 11, 2007 9:42 pm US/Eastern
Global Warming Affecting Local Fishing Industry
by Mish Michaels
NEW BEDFORD (WBZ) ―
Fishing is hard work and getting harder.
Manny Magalhaes is the captain of the Ilha do Corvo, a trawler out of New Bedford.
"Sometimes we go fishing for 10 days, and we can't even catch 1000 pounds of cod fish," said Manny.
Over the past 15 to 20 years, the amount of cod caught from some of the most historically fertile fishing grounds off the Massachusetts coast has plummeted by more than 80 percent
For years, it was believed that overfishing was the cause for the decline, that young fish weren't allowed to get big enough to reproduce.
Dr. Brian Rothschild, a professor of Marine Science at UMass-Dartmouth, doesn't believe overfishing is the only problem.
He has just completed research which shows our warming climate is another reason why the cod is disappearing.
As polar glaciers melt, fresh water rushes into the ocean.
Rothschild said this changes the whole food chain, giving the cod less to eat.
"Basically you had a lot of skinny cod running around the ocean," said Dr. Rothschild.
And unlike past downturns, this time the stakes are higher.
"If it was just fishing, we'd just stop fishing and the stock would rebuild, but if the environment is bad, no matter how much you stop fishing, the stock is not going to rebuild," said Dr. Rothschild.
So how does the declining catch of cod effect the consumer?
"Well the simplest way it impacts the consumer is that the prices go up," said Dr. Rothschild.
But its not just effecting what we pay for seafood.
In ports from Gloucester to Cape Cod, a way of life is threatened, the threads that bind a community, about to unravel.
Just to give you an idea how important fishing is to our economy here in Massachusetts, the largest fishing port in the country is New Bedford. The fourth largest is Gloucester.
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