They’re outta here and headed for Canada. I do not understand how anyone can deny climate change. The proof is all around us. Formerly wet areas suffering from drought, forests dying, massive hurricanes every other week. Now the sea critters are leaving for different parts of the planet to survive. The signs are unmistakable.

Those who don’t believe are blinded by ignorance or greed. Or both.

Longgg article but well worth the read if you’re looking to see what’s in store for the future

The great lobster rush

In Maine, warming seas set up boom and bust

The iconic crustaceans have disappeared in waters to the south. If they keep heading north to Canada, high-flying young lobstermen may pay the biggest price.

A lobster tattoo covers Drew Eaton’s left forearm, its pincers snapping at dock lines connecting it to the American flag on his upper arm. The tattoo is about three-quarters done, but the 27-year-old is too busy with his new boat to finish it.

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Eaton belongs to a new generation of Maine lobstermen who are riding high, for now, on a sweet spot of climate change. Two generations ago, the entire New England coast had a thriving lobster industry. Today, lobster catches have collapsed in southern New England, and the only state with a significant harvest is north in Maine, where the seafood practically synonymous with the state has exploded.

The thriving crustaceans have created a kind of nautical gold rush, with some young lobstermen making well into six figures a year. But it’s a boom with a bust already written in its wake, and the lobstermen of the younger generation may well pay the highest price. Not only have they heavily mortgaged themselves with pricey custom boats in the rush for quick profits, they’ll also bear the brunt of climate change – not to mention the possible collapse of the lobstering industry in Maine as the creatures flourish ever northward.

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Pushed out of their traditional habitats by dramatically rising ocean temperatures and other fallout from climate change, the lobsters are part of a global dislocation of marine species that threatens livelihoods and cultures in the lands where they once thrived.

“You eliminate lobsters, and you have an instant Appalachia, right here.”

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/ocean-shock-lobster/

Since I’m on the subject, another long one but worth it to see the ramifications of our horrific abuse of the Earth.

Ocean Shock: Fish flee the Carolinas as waters warm. People lose out.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/ocean-shock-flounder/

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Forty years ago, Tillett fished for summer flounder in December and January in waters near Wanchese, then followed the fish north as the weather warmed. In recent years, however, fewer summer flounder have traveled as far south in the winter, and the most productive area has shifted north, closer to Martha’s Vineyard and the southern shore of Long Island.

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Reuters has spent more than a year scouring decades of maritime temperature readings, fishery records and other little-used data to create a portrait of the planet’s hidden climate disruption – in the rarely explored depths of the seas that cover more than 70 percent of the Earth’s surface. The reporting has come to a disturbing conclusion: Marine life is facing an epic dislocation.

The U.S. North Atlantic is a prime example. In recent years, at least 85 percent of the nearly 70 federally tracked species there had shifted north or deeper, or both, when compared to the norm over the past half-century, according to the Reuters analysis of U.S. fisheries data. But this great migration is not just off the coast of America. Pushed out of their traditional habitats by the dramatically rising ocean temperatures and other fallout from climate change, summer flounder are part of a global disruption of marine species that threatens livelihoods, cultures and the delicate balance of the oceans themselves.

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There was a time, not too long ago, when recreational anglers routinely caught striped bass along the beaches in North Carolina. But since the beginning of the century, the number of striped bass has steadily declined.

“North Carolina has not caught any striped bass in five or six years or more,” he says. “There has been nothing on the beach.”

They are, however, routinely found in Canadian waters, which was unheard of a generation ago.

In early 2010, a small population of the fish was still wintering off the Carolina coast. Steve Daniels took his trawler three miles offshore into federal waters. Over a 10-day period, he illegally caught about 12,000 pounds of striped bass, landing the fish here in Wanchese, according to the United States Attorney’s Office.

Last August, Steve pleaded guilty to the charges and agreed to pay $95,000 in restitution. He was sentenced to five years’ probation.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/ocean-shock-flounder/