February 12, 2006
The terrible toll revealed
There's an interesting story in the Sunday paper this morning.
Last year in the Tasman sea the crew of the Rainbow Warrior photographed some shocking evidence of bottom trawling's toll on deep sea life. Ancient Gorgonian coral, endangered black coral and other strange bottom-dwelling creatures all hauled up and dumped over the side of NZ flagged vessels.
Industry reps had been saying such things as "NZ fishers simply do not drag heavy trawl gear across pristine sea floor" (Sea Food Industry Council June 2006). So we went looking for more evidence but this time, instead of confronting the fishers on the high seas we used New Zealand's official information act.
The resulting 185 images were truly shocking. They show a litany of bottom trawling bycatch, including endangered black coral, from bottom trawlers fishing for orange roughy and oreos over the last two years, both within the New Zealand EEZ and in international waters. More shocking though is the realisation that this is just the tip of the iceberg!
They are just some of the photos that were taken by the small number of fisheries observers on only some of the bottom trawl vessels during the 2004 and 2005 fishing seasons.
Amongst the species shown are CITES-listed black corals, gorgonian corals, deep-sea crabs and octopus. The presence of corals shows that virgin areas are being bottom trawled and, with the rocks, crabs and other bottom dwellers, shows undeniably that the nets are indeed hitting the bottom.
While these images tell a disturbing story, what is equally disturbing is the unseen. The unseen destruction of biodiversity that didnt make it to the surface; the many species that died from plumes of sediment and the life that is tossed back overboard when nobody is looking.
Comments on this entry:
The spokespersons of the fishing industry are clearly misrepresenting the amount of damage they are causing to deep sea environments where they are attempting to scrounge the last vestiges of marketable fish left. As they ramage, uncontrolled, across the deeper seamounts, it is only the efforts of dedicated ecologists that report their damage.
At home, we can react to limit their effect by boycotting products that justify their activities. Forego using, not only their ill-gotten gains, but also their standard lines. I will live without any fish product that comes from their companies until this travesty is stopped. Kate Lang
Posted by: Kate Lang at February 12, 2006 5:13 PM
