October 30, 2023 — Lobsterwoman Krista Tripp doesn’t need a scientist to tell her the normally cold waters off the coast of Maine are warming. The submersible thermometer she takes on every fishing trip proves that.
But it’s not just the warmer water that’s changing fishing here on the rocky coast of northern New England. Heavy rains are lowering the ocean’s salinity. And warm-water fish that don’t belong keep showing up.
“You can tell the water’s changing, and we’re getting new species,” says Tripp, 38. “People are posting fish they catch on Facebook and asking ‘What’s this?’ And they’re tropical fish.'”
Tripp started lobstering at her grandfather’s knee, where she learned to bait traps. She still tries to fish some of his old favorite spots near to shore, but increasingly she’s plumbing the waters right at the edge of where her permit allows, three miles offshore.
Her grandfather trapped lobster his whole life, and now Tripp, like her father before her, carries on that legacy. For generations, lobstering has helped define this slice of northern New England, where the cold Atlantic waters have been home to the species that helped build a young United States: cod, whales, lobster.
But what Tripp sees from the Shearwater’s wheelhouse is just one part of a larger problem facing the United States, as climate change warms the world’s oceans and transforms the creatures that live in them. As the oceans get hotter, sea life adapts, and many species that used to be easily fished close to land are fleeing to colder, deeper waters.