As climate change raises the ocean’s temperature, some fish species are moving poleward to cooler waters. In the United States, as elsewhere, commercial fishers are trying to adapt. But as a new study of trawler communities along the US east coast documents, fishers’ efforts to adjust are being constrained by a regulatory environment that isn’t adapting with them.
The research, led by Eva Papaioannou, a marine ecologist with the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel in Germany, looked at trawl fishing communities in 10 ports from North Carolina to Maine, where rising water temperatures have been especially pronounced.
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