Photo: Courtesy of Mike O’Neill
QUINCY, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — There were a record number of tropical and subtropical fish sightings along the East Coast last year. Now, scientists need your help looking for more.
“These are species of fish that like warmer water typically than what we see here in New England,” Mike O’Neill, associate curator of aquatic collections at the New England Aquarium, told WBZ NewsRadio.
O’Neill is one of the scientists leading The Gulf Stream Orphan (GSO) Project, a network for organizations that help record sightings and data of these non-native aquatic species.
“All those sightings, we get aggregated,” he said. “We can then download that dataset and start to ask about the seasonality, the timing, the phenology as well as which species are involved.”
According to the New England Aquarium, young fish are carried up north from a warm-water current from the Gulf of Mexico. “This isn’t a new phenomenon,” O’Neill said in a statement. “It’s probably been happening for as long as the Gulf Stream has existed — something like 20,000 years.”
But, the number of sightings has increased dramatically. Last year, GSO said, was a booming season with over a thousand tropical fish observations, compared to 2023 with just over 500.
The project recorded hundreds of bright-orange Short Bigeye fish and a couple of Blue Angelfish, “which typically you would see if you were down the Caribbean scuba diving or snorkeling in Florida,” O’Neill said.
Photo: Courtesy of Mike O’Neill
Photo: Courtesy of Mike O’Neill
Yet, a Cape Cod oyster farmer found a lonesome Blue Angelfish among their cages last year, according to GSO.
Due to the increase, O’Neill said it is important for the community to help collect these datasets which will allow scientists to understand more about the migration.
“The fish we’re looking for are really hard to find so having lots of folks out there helping to find these fish [will] help us with our data quality and help us answer those difficult questions about what are the changes we’re seeing in our coastal environment,” O’Neill said.
GSO has an app, iNaturalist, for everyday beach-goers to help scientists identify these fish. Right now, the app has recorded over 3,000 sightings and identified 113 species.
WBZ NewsRadio's Shari Small (@ShariSmallNews) reports.