Christin Clement / Staff Reporter
Vancouver seafood lovers may need to get used to seeing more squid and sardines, and less sockeye salmon in the future because of climate change. That’s according to a new study from the University of British Columbia that shows the change of 362 local restaurant menus from 1880 to 2021.
“We set out to discover if warming waters due to climate change are already affecting what seafood restaurants serve in their menus,” said senior author Dr. William Cheung. This work has shown how climate change already impacted seafood restaurants and costumers.
It affects everyday life, as “Climate change is already affecting everyone, not only the fishermen who are catching the fish, but the people who go to restaurants and eat fish,” said Cheung. Scientists know that many marine species move in deeper waters or follow their temperatures. Salmon once dominated the menus in Vancouver but now the species has moved to colder waters and more squids and sardines are on the menu.
“Sardines are a warm-water species, so we expect our waters will become more favourable to them and their populations will come back,” said Cheung. To the upcoming squid population Cheung said, “Humbolt squid, we already use,” he said. “Sardines would be very high on the list… I love sardines. I used to use them in California quite a bit.”
The Humboldt squid is a good example for the changing local seafood due climate change. The squid was found on 42 menus in Vancouver from 2019-2021, but only on three menus between 1981-1996, and none earlier in the time period. This squid has been driven north by the higher ocean temperatures.
Cheung also compared menus from Alaska and Los Angeles and found out that restaurants in Alaska serve more cold-water fish and in L.A. they serve more warm-water fish. The seafood menus here in Vancouver changed with warming local seas, pulling out old menus from Victoria and Vancouver shows that locally caught species changed during the decades.
Matching those species with their preferred water temperatures, Cheung said they took the “temperature of a seafood menu.”
However, climate change shows how it can affects the oceans and seas with all the fish that live in it. In addition, it affects the seafood that people eat in restaurants and also the increasing prices of the fish that affects the restaurant owners and the paying customers.