Friday, April 14, 2006

Sensible ocean habitat protection!


Don't destroy habitat while catching fish! That common sense approach is gaining support around the world, most recently on the US West coast. Managers announced recently a ban on bottom trawling for 150,000 square miles of ocean bottom.

As the name suggests, bottom trawl nets drag on the ocean bottom to catch fish. Anything that gets in the way is torn up or caught in the net. It makes little sense to bottom trawl through hundred year old corals to catch fish. That would be like using a bulldozer to hunt for deer in a forest. Web video of a trawl net scraping the ocean bottom.

Recognizing the need for ocean bottom protection, fishermen and environmentalists worked out a compromise which led to this ban. Neither side got everything they wanted, but the end result is some valuable habitat protection and continuation of economically important fishing.

1 comment:

Hodad said...

that is why it is best to sink large trawlers off of Central America,like the Chinese and jap and Russians raping it, they have been warned
McJohnson