Alaska salmon affected by global warming

Alaskan wild salmon has been an uncommon success story among over-exploited fisheries, with healthy runs and robust catches that fetch ever- higher prices at fish markets and high-end restaurants in Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo and London. So the emergence of disease, Times staff writer Kenneth R. Weiss reports, has come as a shock to fishermen and fisheries managers:

Fishermen and regulators who have cooperated to save species from overfishing and local environmental hazards have been caught unprepared to deal with forces beyond their control: how to manage a fishery for climate change....

Cold-temperature barriers are giving way, allowing parasites, bacteria and other disease-spreading organisms to move toward higher latitudes.

"Climate change isn't going to increase infectious diseases but change the disease landscape," said marine ecologist Kevin D. Lafferty, who studies parasites for the U.S. Geological Survey. "And some of these surprises are not going to be pretty."

Photo: Rick Loomis/Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Charlie Peters]

What was the cause of death of Alexander Farrell, 46, expert on alternative fuels?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/18/BAOK1087DP.DTL

Does San Francisco have a Grand Jury to investigate?

[John]

It stopped warming 10 years ago. It has been significantly cooling. The oceans have cooled. Look at the NOAA data.

[Corvid]

@ John - how about try reading the article.

"Kocan and his students scrutinized all the potential variables and found only one significant change [in the Yukon River]: Average river water temperatures had been rising over the last three decades. The warming began earlier each spring, following an earlier breakup of the river's ice. The June temperatures showed the greatest increase, about 6 to 8 degrees warmer, and June is when king salmon return from the ocean and begin their long upriver migration to spawn."

[J Saxton]

The salmon, polar bears, etc. have handled climate variation just fine for millions of years. Let's not get our green panties in a bunch. Global warming is ending anyway, since it's part of a natural climate cycle. AGW is losing it's aura. It's 99% a political phenomenon, and more Americans are realizing how they've been duped each day.