Rising sea temperatures are driving more Mediterranean marine species into British waters, forcing local fishermen to change the way they work and encouraging chefs to rethink their menus.Species such as octopus, red mullet and a variety of bream are now appearing in record numbers off the south west coast of England. According to the Marine Biological Association, warmer seas have caused octopus blooms to spread across the Mediterranean Sea, causing severe damage to native shellfish populations.This rapid change in marine life means that traditional fishes such as cod and mackerel are disappearing from the region, while warm-water predatory and southern fish species are becoming more common.
changes on water
For fishermen in Cornwall, these changing catches mean they have to completely rethink how they catch fish. Crab and lobster fisherman Buck Bennett of Newquay said he has seen more red mullet and a variety of bream than ever before, which shows the industry is undergoing a permanent change.“We’ve always caught red mullet, but the numbers that were low the last few years seem to be increasing massively,” Bennett said.“When you look at them they are a very Mediterranean fish, black bream, gilt-head bream and couch bream are, once again, something we will catch but in very, very small numbers,” he said. “So I think the industry is going to have to, over the next three, five, seven, 10 years, it’s anyone’s guess, we may be fishing and we may have to completely change the way we fish.”Bennett said the South West was once the center of Britain’s mackerel fishery during the 1970s, but today, “nobody can catch mackerel anymore.”Instead, some local fishermen have begun targeting yellowfin tuna. Recently a local boat caught a 130 kg tuna fish. Bennett believes that Britain’s fishing fleet will eventually receive official tuna quotas as the species becomes common in British waters.Accommodating these changes incurs large financial costs. Bennett is already wondering whether new warm-water crab species will arrive, rendering their existing equipment useless. Converting their 600 to 700 traditional crab pots to accommodate the new species could cost more than £100,000.“I think any way you look at it, it’s going to put pressure on the industry, especially the industry here,” Bennett said. “We’re all really kind of unknown, no one has been in this situation before so no one knows what’s going to happen next week, or next month, or six months. That’s why it’s so worrying, because you don’t know whether you can adapt or not, because you don’t know what you have to do in the moment. We can only see the shortfall, we can’t see the gain, we can only see the shortfall.”
price of octopus bloom
The increasing population of octopus is directly reducing the supply of other valuable seafood. Ian Perkes, a fish trader based in Brixham, said the large numbers of octopuses were causing damage to local fish stocks as they eat between 6% and 8% of their body weight every day.Perkes estimates that the octopuses are eating about 10,000 kilograms of local shellfish every day, and they have recently started eating cuttlefish as well.“These fish lay 180,000 eggs, they probably only live about two years but you only need one percent of those eggs to be successful,” Perkes said. “We’re not seeing a lot of cuttlefish anymore, we’re not seeing any mackerel, no cod, no pollock, no squid – these are all species we want to buy at this time of year but we’re not seeing them.”
Fishermen may have to change their methods as octopus feed on crab and lobster stocks (Source: PA Media)
New items on the menu
The change in marine life is now reaching restaurant kitchens. Jamie Park, chef director of the Adam Handling Collection, relies on Bennett’s daily catches and is already changing his menus to match what’s available from the sea.Park believes the famous Cornish crab may soon disappear from the menus of southern England, forcing chefs to source it from northern Wales, Ireland and the cooler waters of the North Atlantic. Also, you’re likely to see more Mediterranean seafood in restaurants in the south.To respond to the urgent situation, Park recently added local octopus to the menu at the Tartan Fox pub near Newquay. It turned an environmental problem into a new dining experience for customers.“I chose to feature the octopus because of what’s going on with the industry right now – it’s here, it’s in our waters and fishermen are catching it,” Park said.“We have told customers that they are an invasive species at the moment, they have taken over the water, they are eating all the native species and they are disruptive to our local fishermen and are causing problems,” he said. “We make guests almost part of a solution, we say ‘come and eat more octopus, at the end of the day you’re doing everyone a favor.’The long-term outlook means British chefs will need to learn how to prepare many unfamiliar seafood species.“To understand new species I have to dig through the Mediterranean encyclopedia of fish,” Park said. “As long as I can source these ingredients that we love, responsibly and sustainably, through small, independent fishermen, I will continue to serve it, but if Buck calls me tomorrow and says we can’t do this anymore because of X-reason, then we will adapt and we will move forward with the times.”