December 2, 2021 — New research looks at how a climate extreme intensifies tensions between ocean life and people, and what can be done about it. The study was recently published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B.
Researchers show that many strategies are insufficient during prolonged, anomalous warm water events called marine heatwaves. Instead, they recommend combining several approaches, including improved forecast systems, technological innovations, and understanding human behavior.
Over the past few years, marine heatwaves have dramatically affected natural resources along the U.S. West Coast, including economically valuable fisheries. Still, we know very little about how and when management actions can dampen their impacts on marine life and the people who rely on the ocean for their livelihoods.
An ecological pileup of recent unprecedented changes in the ocean off the West Coast led to record numbers of reported entanglements of humpback and other whales. These conditions put California’s Dungeness crab fishery, the region’s most valuable commercial fishery, at odds with the conservation of several at-risk whale species.
Read the full story at NOAA Fisheries