Tag Archives: Nick Record
Are the whales leaving with the food? Gulf of Maine research raises questions about new lobstering rules
As the Gulf of Maine’s waters warm, recent studies show the main food source of the endangered North Atlantic right whale is moving north, out of Maine waters. And the whales appear to be following them. Such findings haven’t escaped the notice of the Maine lobster industry, which has been referencing them in its legal arguments as to why impending new federal restrictions on lobstering gear won’t help save the whales. Oceanographer Jeffrey Runge, of the University of Maine and the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, said the lipid-rich copepods have been abundant in the Gulf of Maine since Henry Bigelow did his first oceanographic surveys in the early 20th century, but that abundance has dropped by about 70 percent in the past 20 years. >click to read< 11:57
New Research Shows ‘Strong Correlation’ Between Baby Lobster Decline, Possible Food Source
New science is bearing down on a poorly understood part of the North American lobster’s diet. And it turns out that a tiny crustacean’s abundance may help to explain expected declines in Maine’s lobster harvest. The Gulf of Maine brims with hundreds of varieties of transparent crustaceans known as copepods.,, Recently Record has put himself at the computational nexus of a handful of data sets that track a particular copepod in the Gulf of Maine, called Calanus finmarchicus. The clues to this connection can be found in the ocean waters off New Hampshire >click to read<11:41
