In the latest indication of the rapidly warming waters in the western Arctic, Pink salmon were recently caught in the western Nunavut waters of Cambridge Bay. According to Karen Dunmall, an aquatic biologist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, due to diminishing sea ice, Pacific salmon have been following food sources, which include plankton to jellyfish, shrimp and smaller fish. This is another indication that climate change, which results in thinner sea and fresh water ice that forms later and breaks up earlier, warmer rivers, milder winters, longer summers and changes in wildlife and vegetation, is affecting the Arctic more dramatically than anywhere on the globe. It’s n across the Arctic
In total, the Arctic research salmon program estimates that in 2019 roughly 2,000 salmon samples have been provided to them – almost triple the number from 19 years of monitoring harvesters and this number appears to be rising.
Similarly, Pink salmon have spread to parts of northern Europe after being released into rivers in Russia in the 1960s. Unprecedented numbers of the fish were found in Scottish rivers in 2017 and they were seen again in 2019 on the Dee which flows through Aberdeenshire, the Tweed which passes through the Borders, Kyle of Sutherland which is an estuary in the east Highlands and the River Ness which flows through Inverness and into Loch Ness when in September, a lone male was captured on one of our underwater surveillance cameras.”
Fishery managers in Scotland are concerned that the Pinks which are voracious eaters and which have already become established in rivers and streams in Norway, could colonize Scottish rivers and out compete native Atlantic .