Canada: Warming ocean displacing and reducing Northern shrimp stocks in the Gulf of St. Lawrence

Northern shrimp are a demersal species — living on or near the cold ocean floor –– but they are not being spared from warming seas. The federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans held a technical briefing for media recently to discuss the latest effects the changing oceans are having on Northern shrimp found in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the southern limit of the species. The waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the St. Lawrence River estuary form a well-stratified system that has three distinct layers. Between 2009 and 2022, average water temperatures in the Gulf have risen from 5.2 C to 7.0 C, and that 1.8 C difference is affecting the deepest layer. In addition, those deep waters are seeing decreased concentrations of the oxygen needed for marine life to survive. In some of the deepest reaches of the Gulf, which are at around 300 to 400 metres, the oxygen levels have reached lethal thresholds. Shrimp displaced While the warming ocean has actually increased lobster habitat, ...