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Tag: deep sea fishing

Floridian flamingos and fishing in the twilight zone: Thursday Afternoon Dredging, March 1st, 2018

Posted on March 1, 2018 By David Shiffman
Uncategorized

Cuttings (short and sweet):  Follow Kristina Tietjen, a marine conservation biologist working in Kiribati, on twitter! A case for wild flamingos calling Florida their home. By Joann Klein, for the New York Times. The underwater damage left behind by hurricanes. From NPR’s Weekend Edition. Even corals have microbiomes. By Jason Goldman, for Hakai. Life of an albatross. … Read More “Floridian flamingos and fishing in the twilight zone: Thursday Afternoon Dredging, March 1st, 2018” »

More than 100 marine scientists call for protecting the deep sea from trawling. Will you join us?

Posted on January 28, 2013January 28, 2013 By David Shiffman 8 Comments on More than 100 marine scientists call for protecting the deep sea from trawling. Will you join us?
Conservation, Science

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The least-impacted places in the ocean are mainly in the deep sea, but as fishing technology has improved, even seamounts, sponge gardens and deep-sea coral beds are no longer out of reach of our appetites for seafood. Bottom trawling, which involves dragging a heavy weighted net along the seabed, is so destructive to benthic habitats that it has been compared to clear-cutting a forest.  Bottom gillnetting catches almost anything that swims into them (and isn’t smaller than the mesh size), resulting in enormous levels of bycatch.

A (simplified) schematic of a bottom trawl. This one (on the NOAA vessel Henry Bigelow) is used for scientific sampling, not fishing, but it's the same principle on a smaller scale. Image via Wikimedia Commons
A (simplified) schematic of a bottom trawl. This one (on the NOAA vessel Henry Bigelow) is used for scientific sampling, not fishing, but it’s the same principle on a smaller scale.                  Image via Wikimedia Commons

 

The deep-sea fishing fleet of the European Union is one of the largest in the world, which is why it was so heartening to see the European Commission call for a phase-out of trawls and bottom gillnets recently. The Marine Conservation Institute, a longtime leader in marine protected areas, has obtained over 100 signatures (including mine) from marine scientists supporting a phase-out of bottom trawls and bottom gillnets by the EU fishing fleet. If you are a scientist who supports this measure, please consider adding your signature. This can be done by e-mailing DeepSeaTrawlPetition@Marine-Conservation.org and including your name, institutional affiliation, degree, title, and full mailing address. Please note that MCI is primarily interested in signatures from the scientific community, and that simply posting a comment on this blog post is not equivalent to signing the petition.However, feel free to post a comment letting us know that you contacted MCI!

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The full text of the petition can be seen after the jump:

Read More “More than 100 marine scientists call for protecting the deep sea from trawling. Will you join us?” »

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