Alaska Beat

AK Beat: Warming oceans push fish toward poles, study says

Study: Fish will move north as oceans warm: Warming oceans will shift ocean fish populations away from the tropics and towards the poles, perhaps creating new fisheries in Arctic waters, according to a study conducted by scientists at the University of British Columbia and reported on by the CBC. The study considered several different warming scenarios and found that under best-case conditions, fish populations would shift northward or southward by about 15 kilometers (a little more than 9 miles) a decade. In the worst-case scenario -- where ocean temperatures rise three degrees Celsius by 2100 -- fish populations would shift polewards by some 26 kilometers (16 miles) per decade. Not all fish will fare well in the new habitats they encounter, one of the study's lead authors, William Cheung told the CBC: "He said for those that cannot, it may be because of the absence of specific spawning grounds or food items, or the occurrence of new predators." The changes could also affect fisheries management agreements between nations, Cheung told the Canadian Press. Alaska waters have already witnessed the presence of unusual fish species due in part to warming water temperatures.

With sanctions, Russia filling seafood demand elsewhere: When Russia closed its borders to fish from the U.S., Canada, E.U. and other allied nations in August, other nations' seafood industries stepped in to fill the gap, reports seafood industry site Undercurrent News. For salmon, Chile and the Faroe Islands mostly filled the gap created when imports of the fish from targeted nations were cut off. Those nations managed to supply enough salmon to raise Russian imports to the levels they'd been at before the ban -- a tenfold increase for the Faroe Islands. Some $3.3 million of frozen Alaska pinks were sold in Russia this year before the ban, according to a report form earlier this year. Salmon roe and Alaska Pollock surimi, the state's primary exports to Russia, weren't included in the report.

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