Tag Archives: southern edge of their range

Scientists point to longfin squid for Maine’s prized shrimp fishery collapse

Maine shrimp were long a regional delicacy fishermen and diners alike looked forward to each fall,,, But in 2012, their population collapsed, federal regulators closed the fishery, and they haven’t recovered since. Maine was always at the southern edge of their range, and the crash coincided with an extreme marine heat wave that warmed the Gulf of Maine’s waters to the highest temperatures since the 1950s. But some thought there had to be more to the shrimp’s disappearance than just heat-sensitivity. “After I saw this I remembered a fisherman saying to me ‘it’s the damn squid.’ He was saying there had been squid all over the place that spring,” Richards said. >click to read< 16:22