December 13th, 2016 — Squid and fish that thrive in warmer waters, such as sardines and anchovies, are flourishing around the North Sea, according to fisheries data.
Squid are now being caught at 60% of survey stations in the North Sea, compared with 20% in the 1980s.
But the likes of cod are heading north, away from British waters.
Dr John Pinnegar, of the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas), which has been monitoring North Sea fish populations for more than 100 years, said models for 2025 and beyond suggested that seawater temperatures off the UK may continue to rise.
Fishing boats are now catching species that have not been caught in the area before.
Mediterranean alternatives
“Twenty or 30 years ago we hardly saw squid in our surveys,” he told BBC News.
Dr Pinnegar, programme director for marine climate change at Cefas, said summer squid fisheries had expanded around the Moray Firth in north-east Scotland, as part of efforts to reduce over-fishing of more traditional species such as haddock and cod.
“A lot of the things we see increasing in abundance around the UK are marine animals that would probably originally [be] thought of as being Mediterranean or characteristic of the Bay of Biscay, or around Portugal or Spain,” he added.