Once upon a time, Cod was quite plentiful in New England. But now this tasty species is in so much trouble that cod fishing has been practically shut down. According to scientists, rapid warming in the Gulf of Maine can explain why recent efforts of regulators to help the cod while allowing fishing failed.

Andrew Pershing, oceanographer at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, said, “Year after year, as they looked at the population, they realized that there were fewer cod than they expected there to be. They thought that they should be rebuilding, but they were actually declining”.

He said at the same time the cod were strangely failing to rebound, and odd things were taking place on the shores of Maine. People were detecting seahorses, which have almost never ever gone that far north.

Pershing recalled that they had squid they don't generally find there. They had species such as black sea bass that were generally found around Long Island and were hanging out in the lobster traps there in Maine.

These oddities were taking place because of the warming of the Gulf of Maine. Pershing and his colleagues, in the journal Science, said the cod was also getting hurt by the warming and such a thing was not taken into account when managers were setting their fishing quotas. This revealed that even if people didn't go beyond their quotas, a lot of cod got taken.