Connecticut’s traditional fishing catch is heading north
There was a hefty irony to the announcement by Connecticut’s two U.S. senators earlier this summer that they were joining the sponsorship for a National Lobster Day next month.
The iconic symbol of the state’s fishing industry for years, Long Island Sound was once flush with lobster, traps and people who made their livings from them.
But no more.
Connecticut’s lobster landings topped 3.7 million pounds a year, worth $12 million, in the late 1990s, but by 2014 had diminished to about 127,000 pounds worth a little more than $600,000.
Instead of the picture of fishing success, lobster has become the face of climate change in New England: a sentinel of warming water, ocean acidification and other man-made impacts that have sent them and dozens of other marine animals scurrying in search of a more hospitable environment.
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The other pattern was that a number of shellfish species, including Atlantic scallops, surf clams, Eastern oysters and hard clams like quahogs, were highly vulnerable because of higher water acidity, known as ocean acidification, which prevents those species from developing shells properly.
Acidification is caused by increased carbon dioxide – one of the factors in climate change – being absorbed by the water along with the nutrient runoff from fertilizers, pesticides and other sources that has plagued the Sound for decades.
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Among the bi-valve shellfish thought to face acidification stress, Atlantic scallops could be of greatest concern. They are now a mainstay of the fishing industry in Connecticut as well as nationally, fetching very high prices. NOAA’s data show a drop in both scallop landings and value in Connecticut.
The problem, scientists say, is that acidification may not be recognized in shellfish until it’s too late.
It’s only in the last year that the Connecticut Department of Agriculture’s Aquaculture Division has added acidification and how to handle it to its ongoing concern with the warming water temperature from climate change and its effects.
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But with acidification now also a worry, she attended her first workshop through the Northeast Coastal Acidification Network this past winter after hearing reports from Maine that acidification was becoming a problem. “We’re talking to experts and trying to figure out what we’re supposed to be monitoring,” she said.
The biggest concerns for Connecticut are the natural shellfish seeding beds, which account for about 95 percent of the shellfish seeding operations in the state. They are located at the mouths of rivers, which catch the brunt of the runoff from storms, now made more extreme by climate change and therefore more laden with pollution.
The young clams and oysters feel the impact of acidification more acutely. Big storms have been known to cause dramatic drops in the pH level of the water – essentially reflecting higher acidity.
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