http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=15022002-024304-5327r
Deep
sea organisms threatened by fishing
By Harvey Black
UPI Science News
Published 2/15/2002 3:22 PM
BOSTON, Feb. 15 (UPI)
-- Deep ocean biodiversity is being devastated
as the fishing industry, using improved technology, seeks to increase
its catch, biologist Callum Roberts of York University said Friday
at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
"What is being
destroyed now took centuries to discover.
We are felling ancient forests of diversity," he said,
referring to the loss of colonies of invertebrates accidentally
destroyed as trawlers scrape nets over coral reefs and under
sea mountains.
The pace of recovery
of species is "like a glacier," he said.
"One pass of a trawler can destroy a 5,000-year-old reef."
Between 30 percent
and 50 percent of coral reefs off Norway
have been damaged, he asserted.
"You can see the
devastation of communities," said
Cindy Lee Van Dover in agreement. Van Dover is an
ecologist at the College of William and Mary and
has been studying the sea floor as part of the
International Biodiversity Observation Year.
Roberts said there
is an urgent need to establish
marine reserves to protect species whose existence
is threatened. Currently marine deep-sea fishing
is not regulated.
A recent report by
the World Wildlife Fund for Nature
and the International Conservation Union Science said
international law offers a basis for the establishing
such marine reserves. He criticized governments in the
United States and Europe for providing grants to the
fishing industry to develop improved technology for
deep-water fishing.
The idea, prevalent
in the 19th century, that the ocean
is so vast extinction of species was not a realistic
possibility is incorrect. In a paper appearing in Friday's
issue of Science, Roberts and colleagues report thousands
of species live in restricted, highly localized areas.
The industry's efforts
to net more fish has damaged
the fish population as well, he said. For example,
the orange roughy population off New Zealand has been
reduced by 80 percent. Such deep-sea fishing also
threatens the viability of the species. Rockfish,
for example, a deep swimming genus, can reach
200 years of age. according to radiometric dating
methods.
New Zealand and Australia,
he said, have taken steps
to protect some of the underwater biodiversity
by restricting fishing on a number of underwater
mountains. Australia has moved to protect 12,
New Zealand to safeguard 19. The United States
has established a small protected area off Alaska.
Copyright © 2001-2003
United Press International
