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Fish are shrinking

May 8, 2024, 10:17am EDT
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Fareed Kotb/Anadolu via Getty Images
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The News

Fish are shrinking. The average body weight of nearly three-quarters of marine fish populations sampled dropped between 1960 and 2020, a recent study suggests.

The change threatens the food supply of the more than 3 billion people who rely on seafood as a source of protein, The Washington Post reported.

Overfishing is known to reduce fish sizes — fish are larger in protected marine areas — but climate change seems to play a part as well: Researchers found that trout reared in warm water tanks were on average less than half the size of those raised in colder ones.

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Scientists speculate that larger fish find it harder to regulate their body temperatures in warm water.

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