Fish from the south are making NYC waters home as warming seas make the area more balmy: study

The Big Apple has become the new sea-life hot spot.Warm-water fish from southern regions are making the Big Apple their new home — as rising temperatures are attracting marine creatures used to balmy conditions, according to a new study.Fish like the massive Cobia — similar to the tropical mahi-mahi — have been spotted gentrifying aquatic neighborhoods like Jamaica Bay, where the flounder and mackerel that have long lived there are leaving to find cooler regions.“Eventually we’re going to have a fish community that resembles what’s in Chesapeake Bay right now,” biology professor and study co-author John Waldman told The Post.“I can’t believe the changes in my lifetime.”The first-of-its-kind study is considered the largest effort to date to understand how the fish of Jamaica Bay have responded to rising water temperatures and other climate changes.Waldman, along with former biology professor José D.

Anadó, evaluated the change in fish species between 1989 and 2017 in the Brooklyn-Queens bay, where rising temperatures have outpaced other parts of the globe.The summer water temperatures in New York have increased by more than 2°F in just over two decades — a difference that is five times greater than the 0.2°F per decade increase in global upper ocean temperatures, Waldman said.That means that Jamaica Bay has transformed into a warmer hotspot that attracts the likes of the massive Cobia, a Gulf of Mexico species that had never been found in the Big Apple until recently.

Populations have surged so significantly that fishing expeditions have turned their sights on the Cobia, which is renown for being as delicious as its more famous cousin, the mahi-mahi.Redfish, Black Drum and tiny skilletfish have also invaded Jamaica Bay in recent years.“All of a sudden, they’re all over the place,” Waldman said.The same warm conditions that are enticing the newbies into Big Apple waters are kicking the old fish out, however.

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