Face of Nation : When Stuart Beaton started fishing for lobster in 1971, the ocean waters off the northern coast of Nova Scotia and the marine creatures that lived beneath the waves behaved differently than today. There is now less ice coverage in the spring, new species have arrived and lobsters are flocking to more northern waters amid rising ocean temperatures. His family, with three generations of lobster fishermen, have watched the changes in real time over half a century.
“In our business, we’re very exposed to what happens. If two degrees kills the oceans…” said his son, Gordon Beaton, during an interview on a wharf in Ballantynes Cove, N.S., before his father added: “We’re going to be the first to know.”
Their comments come as a UN-backed panel of experts released a new study Wednesday about the ocean and the cryosphere — the frozen parts of the planet.
Compiled by more than 100 authors who examined 7,000 scientific publications, the IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate emphasized that the ocean is warmer, more acidic and less productive. The effects of climate change are being felt in the Maritimes’ lucrative lobster fishing industry on many different levels.
Stuart Beaton, 73, said during his 19 years of fishing in the ’70s and ’80s, the start of the spring season was delayed by ice coverage 13 or 14 times, sometimes for as long as 20 days. But his grandson Dylan Beaton, 27, said the start of the season has been delayed only a couple of times during the seven years he’s been fishing.
Stuart Beaton said warming ocean temperatures are also having an impact on the kinds of species they see in the Northumberland Strait.
“Striped bass, in particular, were unheard of here. In 1971, when I was here, nobody knew what a striped bass was,” he said. “They’re very prevalent around here now.” Boris Worm, a professor of marine biology at Halifax’s Dalhousie University, contributed science that was assessed in the new report.
Worm said if the world continues on the current path, there will be 17 per cent less marine life globally on average by the end of the century. But he said the effects of global warming are manifesting differently in Canada’s Atlantic lobster fishery.
“Nova Scotia, for example, is seeing more than average sea level rise, but the warming we see tends to be beneficial for some of the species we’re fishing, such as lobster,” he said. “Lobster, right now, is at a temperature where it’s doing really well, and that’s partly explaining the great catches that we’ve seen in recent years.”
But he warned that local fishermen are not celebrating, as they watch lobsters move up from New England toward Canadian waters. “You can anticipate that at some point what is at least in part of our region may get too warm to support large lobster catches,” said Worm.
