Friday, November 11th
1:46PM
According to an article from Science Daily, many species of Pacific fish risk extinction if they do not speed up their natural migration. The effects of climate change are starting to reach the oceans, not only through increased acidity, but also through increased temperatures. Some of the fish will be able to adapt to the increase in the equatorial temperatures; however many entire species will have to flee to cooler waters. One of the major problems with this migration is that the water heats up much more evenly than the land, due to the generally similar elevation of the oceans. This means that unlike land animals, which can simply climb elevation or move pole-wards to reach cooler temperatures, fish must swim great distances before they would reach a temperature in which they could feel comfortable.
At first glance, this story does not look terribly threatening to people, or society at all. It seems that it’s about a few groups of fish that will have a difficult time with global warming. Upon further inspection, however, these populations of fish that we’re discussing are not trivial populations, but rather they are a major food source for people that live on the Eastern Asia and the islands of the pacific. This new need for migration could lead to the disruption of some species’ mating practices, meaning that there would be a likely decline in the populations. This would mean a decline in a previously abundant food supply for millions, if not billions of people. The oceans are already over fished as it is today. If we attempt to continue this pace, when the fish are in decline, I fear that we may start to see some very ecologically important species go extinct due to overfishing.
No comments:
Post a Comment