Short BigeyePhoto: New England Aquarium
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — The New England Aquarium is taking care of some tropical fish that made their way up to the coast during this year's Gulf Stream Orphan season.
Each summer, tropical fish find their way from the Gulf of Mexico to the East Coast, but when the waters turn cold again it can be a death sentence for them.
Mike O’Neill, Associate Curator of Aquatic Collections at the aquarium, discussed how this phenomenon, known as the Gulf Stream, occurs.
“The Gulf Stream is constantly moving warm water from the tropics up along the east coast of North America,” he said. “In our summers and early fall, our water temperatures are warm enough that some of the tropical creatures living in that water can survive here temporarily.”
He explained that this occurrence reaches its peak for Southern New England in September, so creatures like the Spotfin Butterfly fish and the Short Bigeye are now being spotted in the area.
O'Neill and the New England Aquarium have been leading the Gulf Stream Orphan Project since 2016, collecting and cataloging the unusual fish finds before the water temperature starts to decline.
It's a collaborative field collecting effort with the help of other aquariums and community scientists who post sightings on a website called iNaturalist.
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Researchers will go out and study the fish found off Cape Cod and in waters off Rhode Island and bring some back to the Quincy Animal Care Center so they can survive the winter.
“The thing I love about this is you never know exactly what you're going to find I think over a hundred different species have been reported,” O’Neill said.
So far there have been over 500 reports this year alone.
More information regarding the Gulf Stream Orphan Project and the New England Aquarium’s involvement can be found here.
WBZ NewsRadio’s Emma Friedman (@EmmaFriedmanWBZ) reports.