TWO separate reports just published suggest climate change is having a profound affect on fish shoals in the north Atlantic and around parts of the UK coastline.
Welsh fishermen are reporting growing evidence of sea warming as catches of rare fish and extreme sea conditions are all seen as signs of change, said Jerry Percy of the Welsh Federation of Fishermen's Associations.
Mr Percy spoke as he was unveiled as World Wildlife Fund Cymru's second 'climate witness' - people chosen to raise awareness of climate change. As WFFA chief executive he now works in support of more than 600 fishing businesses in Wales. "Fishermen have told me about changes in species catch and more extreme weather conditions, increased tidal and wind strengths, which they thought maybe be due to climate change," he said. Mr Percy said there had been reports that once rare fin fish and southern European shellfish were increasingly being caught off the Welsh coast.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic , fishermen are reporting that stocks are non existent in some areas as fish move further north to escape warmer waters.
The survey, performed by researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s science centre in Massachusetts, studied 36 stocks in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean, many of them commercially important, ranging from Atlantic cod and haddock to winter flounders and Atlantic herring.
The stock assessments were compared to historic ocean temperature records. About half of the 36 stocks in the study were found to be shifting northward over the last four decades.
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