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| Climate change affecting Atlantic mackerel |
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 NARRAGANSETT, R.I. (UPI) -- Environmental factors have affected Atlantic mackerel from Cape Hatteras, N.C., to Newfoundland, shifting them northeast into shallower waters, researchers say.Scientists with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration say mackerel, which migrate great distances on a seasonal basis to feed and spawn, are sensitive to changes in water temperature and the finding could have significant implications for U.S. commercial and recreational mackerel fishing activities that mostly occur during late winter and early spring. The "continental shelf is warming, increasing the area over which the stock can be distributed, while at the same time the distribution of the stock is shifting northward," Jon Hare of NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Narragansett, R.I., said. "Atlantic mackerel is one of many species shifting their distribution range as a result of changing oceanographic and environmental patterns." The climate-driven shift in distribution patterns will likely make finding and catching Atlantic mackerel more difficult in certain areas in the future, he said.
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