Night fell as the two scientists unfurled a long net from the end of the boat and set to work. The jungle played a symphony of the night. I could hear the sweet sounds of insects, the chirps of monkeys in the distance, and the occasional kite. The crocodile was relaxing in the shallows, its eyes shining in the light of a headlamp.
At sea, a cargo ship glided through the sea, forming a dark shape.
For more than a century, the Panama Canal has been a vital artery for global trade, connecting far-flung peoples and economies, and in recent weeks it has become the target of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s expansionist plans. .
But these days, the canal also connects something else: the vast ecosystems of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
The two oceans have been separated for about 3 million years, ever since the Isthmus of Panama rose above sea level and divided the oceans. The canal carved a path through the continent, but for decades only a handful of marine fish were able to migrate through Lake Gatun, a freshwater reservoir that supplies water to the channel and locks. did.
Then in 2016, everything started to change when Panama expanded the canal to allow super-large ships.
Scientists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama found that in less than a decade, fish from both oceans, including snook, horse mackerel and snapper, had almost completely displaced the freshwater fish species that previously occupied the canal system. I discovered that. Fishermen around Lake Gatun, who rely primarily on fish species such as peacock bass and tilapia, say their catches are decreasing.
Researchers now fear that even more fish may start migrating from one ocean to the other. And no potential invader causes more concern than the poisonous candy-striped lionfish. It is known to inhabit the Caribbean coast of Panama, but not the eastern Pacific Ocean. If they get there through the canal, they could attack defenseless local fish, just as they have done in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean.
Gatun Lake already attracts more than occasional marine life, said Philippe Sanchez, a fisheries ecologist at the Smithsonian Institution. They are “becoming the dominant community,” he says. They are “pushing out everything else.”
