Unusual species in Alaska waters indicate parts of Pacific warming dramatically

[Blue_In_AK]

http://www.adn.com/article/20140914/unusual-species-alaska-waters-indicate-parts-pacific-warming-dramatically

A giant hotspot in the North Pacific Ocean may help explain why a massive ocean sunfish was spotted in Prince William Sound this month and a skipjack tuna was caught in a gillnet weeks earlier near the mouth of the Copper River, scientists say.

Both species are unusual visitors to Alaska. Steve Moffitt, a research biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Cordova, believes the tuna might be the northernmost ever recorded.

"'Fishes of Alaska' (a 2002 book by Catherine Mecklenburg) has one confirmed documentation caught in a setnet in Yakutat Bay in 1981 and a personal communication that some were caught off southern southeastern Alaska,'' he noted in an email to colleagues.

Yakutat Bay is about 200 miles southeast of where the latest catch was made about 150 miles southeast of Anchorage. Skipjack, the smallest and most common of the commercial tuna species, are normally considered a fish of the tropics.

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[msongs]

1. thanks to our friends who eat fish, those fish may soon be extinct anyway so no big deal eh? nt

[stuntcat]

2. but "meat" is green!

7 billion humans are entitled to "meat"!

That's my biggest impression from the "environmentalists" of Democratic Underground anyway lol

[AtheistCrusader]

3. Not many people eat sunfish.

Though I suppose netting by-catch that kills them and discards them as waste is a problem.

I would think a bigger issue would be the trash pretty much everyone is hucking in the ocean, that somewhat resembles their food... Like plastic bags.

[Nihil]

4. Just the usual suspects ...

> However, the most deadly predator for ocean sunfish are humans.
> Although people in China and Japan eat ocean sunfish,
> most of the sunfish caught are bycatch

"Bycatch": the obscene killing of "unprofitable" victims in the nets.

Mind you, the attitude of "people in China and Japan" is pretty f* disgusting
when you consider just how many species they are willingly exterminating
to satisfy their sick appetite for exotics.