Mediterranean Fish Now Routine For English Anglers As Oceans Warm

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"It was not the largest fish caught off Southend pier at the weekend, but it was certainly the most colourful, with yellow stripes, red fins and pearly dots on its iridescent body. It was a variety of rainbow wrasse and, even though this is a Mediterranean or semi-tropical fish, its presence hardly surprised some Essex fishermen who have been hauling out octopuses, squid, sardines, sea cucumbers, seahorses and anchovies recently.

The North sea and the Thames estuary are warming up so fast with climate change, they say, that they are now catching species that they used only ever to see on holiday and which would have been undreamed of in British coastal waters just a few years ago.

"The catch is becoming totally different. Where cod and plaice were once plentiful, we are now catching vast numbers of warm water fish. Our whole mode of fishing has changed", said Paul Gilson, vice-chairman of the Kent and Essex sea fisheries committee. "There are weird things being caught. Over the past five years we have been seeing a real change" said Ronan Roche, an Essex local government fisheries officer.

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The warmer sea is also believed to be one reason the cold water loving cod and salmon are not recovering from massive overfishing despite increased protection. Stocks of young cod are at their lowest for 20 years and the numbers of wild salmon returning to British rivers to spawn have also fallen to a record low. The Essex fishermen believe that what is happening in the south of England may be linked to potentially catastrophic declines in seabird numbers in the Orkneys and Shetlands. Unprecedented breeding failures there have made this year the worst on record."

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1288558,00.html