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Food

Our Supply of Cheap Fish Sticks Is Endangered by Global Warming

The New England coast has been supplying us with flaky white fish for half a millennium, but supplies are dangerously low—just 4 percent of what would sustain a healthy population.
Foto von xx via Flickr

If you love that golden crispy crunch of fish sticks, it might be time to raid the freezer aisle. A study in Science found that populations of cod on the coast of New England, home to historic US cod fisheries that have been supplying flaky white fish for half a millennium, are dangerously low—just 4 percent of what would sustain a healthy population. The culprit, the researchers say, is climate change.

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The study finds that shifting currents caused by climate change, foremost the Gulf Stream moving north, are the primary cause of warmer waters off the New England coast from Cape Cod to Cape Sable in Nova Scotia. From 2004 to 2013, the waters in the stretch, known as the Gulf of Maine, have risen by four degrees, which the study's authors called "remarkable." That rise outpaces 99.9 percent of the world's oceans, which already absorb 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions. Cod thrive in cold waters, and the warmer waters have led to populations reaching record lows and drastic cuts in fishing quotas.

Warming water is a spiraling cycle of bad news for cod, which have a harder time metabolizing food in warm water, leaving them with less energy. Cod are particularly affected around age four, when they are at their prime reproductive age, leading to fewer fish being born. Their offspring in turn have a harder time finding food given that the plankton they eat migrate deeper in search of colder waters. There, juvenile cod are more likely to encounter predators. Some haddock is eating what could have grown up to be your fish stick.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration backed the study, saying that data available to the agency in the past led to inaccurate estimations of cod populations, which led to higher catch quotas and overfishing. The study said the cod stock in the Gulf of Maine has been "chronically overfished." Many fishermen, however, disagree with the study and believe there are many more cod in the sea than the study estimates. The cod catch has fallen 90 percent over the last 30 years.

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It's a historic change for a region strongly tied to its fishing economy and heritage and once rife with cod. The Boston Globe writes that cod were once so plentiful that fishermen used to joke that they could walk across the Atlantic on their backs. Indeed, abundant cod fisheries were one reason settlers moved to New England in the first place. Cape Cod is named for the fish; in his 1602 diary, Gabriel Archer writes, "Near this cape we came to fathom anchor in fifteen fathoms, where we took great store of codfish… and we called it Cape Cod." Cod helped finance the Revolutionary War.

Fisherman have watched their catches and the value of their industry dwindle by more than half over the period the study examined. The historically low quotas and moratoriums on fishing have hurt, and some fisherman think it's without reason.

"The study is entirely based upon the false premise that cod are actually at a low level," Vito Giacolone, policy director of the commercial fishing group Northeast Seafood Coalition told The Boston Globe. "Cod are actually quite abundant and seem to be literally everywhere."

Scientists say that there may indeed have been a recent spike in fish stocks due to remarkably cold winters the past two years, but they expect the cod population to continue to struggle. And cod quotas will likely remain very low by historical standards.

It's looking like rough seas ahead for fish, fishermen, and fish-stick lovers alike.