June 6, 2015 — Climate change continues to affect the species swimming in our waters. The multitude of sharks now common off our Atlantic beaches are a good example.
The Marine Stewardship Council predicts that as sea temperatures change, fish numbers will change and fish will move to different areas and predators and prey will move to different areas, disrupting food chains.
Despite the movie Jaws and its ilk, there hasn’t been a death due to a shark since 1936 as the New Bedford newspaper reports on the right. Click the newspaper image to see it larger.
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is now closing the fisheries for commercial blacknose sharks and non-blacknose small coastal sharks (SCS) in the Atlantic region. This action is necessary because the commercial landings of Atlantic blacknose sharks for the 2015 fishing season have exceeded 80 percent of the available commercial quota as of May 29, 2015, and the blacknose shark and non-blacknose SCS fisheries are quota-linked under current regulations.
Read the full story at Cape Cod Today