A new online platform has been created to try and identify the wealth of ‘strange wildlife’ that is now migrating to the Algarve.
Explains SIC television, climate change – and the warming of sea waters – is attracting a bizarre host of previously unknown creatures, like the ‘bearded fireworm’ – usually more at home in the Mediterranean, or ‘tropical Atlantic’ (off the North African coast) – which was caught near Portimão recently in a trap for octopus.
Blue Crab and American ‘corvina’ are two other species that appear to have hitched rides this way on the change in the temperature of coastal waters.
Thus to try and keep up with new visitors, and monitor what their arrival may mean to other creatures common to the area, EcoReach investigators at the University of the Algarve have created the ‘NEM Algarve’ online platform where members of the public can upload images and experiences.
SIC acknowledges that it will take years of research to quantify the effects of climate change on the Algarve, but one thing is certain: the temperature of the waters is increasing more than anywhere else in the country, albeit in decimal points.
Effects of the surface waters getting warmer will affect certain fish, say researchers, like the sardines particularly.
As fishermen have tried to explain, it’s not overfishing that has led to a drop in the sardine population, but climate change (click here).
For some stunning pictures and explanations of where the Algarve’s new visitors are coming from, and what they look like, see the NEM Algarve Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/NEMAlgarve
