Is it a plane on fire? No, it’s a trawler deploying a drag net lifting sediment that drifts into the sea.
It adds up,
altering temperature, distributing particulates, unsettling toxins….
Skytruth has satellite images and a tour of sediment plumes at Trawling Impacts. The gallery of satellite pictures reveal only the tip of the iceberg because “most trawling happens in waters too deep to detect sediment plumes at the surface”.
The drag nets scour the sea bottom, plowing the seafloor in each coastline of the world’s oceans, leaving a persistent dust along the coastline and within ocean currents.
From the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Dragnet: Bottom Trawling symposium revealed severe damage, the world’s most severe and extensive seafloor disturbances.
“Until recently, the impact was basically hidden from view. But new tools – especially Internet-based image sites, like Google Earth – allow everyone to see for themselves what’s happening. In shallow waters with muddy bottoms, trawlers leave long, persistent trails of sediment in their wake.”
“Overfishing has eliminated 90 percent of the world’s large predatory fishes and is devastating marine ecosystems.”
“What is amazing is the level of damage these types of animals have suffered, after the cod fishery in Canada was closed. We immediately started trawling deeper with no restrictions, and continue to do so.”
“There are ways to catch fish that are less harmful to the world’s vanishing marine life. We need to start protecting the seafloor by using fishing gear, besides bottom trawls, especially in the deep sea. It’s the only thing left.”
“For years marine scientists have been telling the world that fishing has harmed marine biodiversity more than anything else. And it’s clear that trawling causes more damage to marine ecosystems than any other kind of fishing. Now, as the threats of ocean acidification and melting sea ice are adding insult to injury, we have to reduce harm from trawling to have any hope of saving marine ecosystems.”
“Just four percent of Earth’s oceans are still pristine.”
A NOAA biologist says interactions among species, the effects of climate change, and the effects of human impacts such as harvesting are factors in an ecosystem-based fishery management plan. Conventional fishery management practices concentrate on individual species rather than a holistic approach that looks at the bigger picture.
Wired and Science Magazine are reporting about a groundbreaking new map showing human impact on oceans at a global scale. It is the “first comprehensive analysis of human impacts on marine ecosystems” showing that we’ve affected nearly half of the world’s oceans. Coral reefs, seagrass beds, rocky reefs and continental shelves have been particularly hard hit. [tip to Kaila Colbin]
