Wildlife

Warming Gulf of Maine Contributes to Cod Collapse

Cod populations off New England are collapsing because waters of the Gulf of Maine have been rising 99 percent faster than anywhere else in the world since 2004, researchers say.

Scientists from the Gulf of Maine Research Institute say they found that the rapid warming has reduced the number of new cod being spawned.

While quotas for fishing fleets are carefully calculated to keep fish stock sustainable under historic conditions, the warming has not been considered as a factor, allowing overfishing to occur in recent years even though fishermen stayed within their quotas.