Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Bottom Trawling


Today while scouring the mail star newspaper I came accross an interesting article about industrial fishing and more specifically bottom trawling. This article focused on Marine biologist Boris Worm's opinion that a global marine apocalype will occur by 2050 if nothing is done to prevent it. One key point he makes is that we should be moving away from thing such as trawling as it not only destroys habitat but also promotes many by-catches in which many fish and marine life are killed without there actually being a use for them. This can occur from bottom trawling as because lots of fish and other things are trawled from the sea at such great depths, when brought to the surface its useless for fisherman to even thorow them back as they are already dead from the dramatic pressure differences from sea floor to the surface. Thus tons and tons of fish and other things go to waste everyday from these industrial methods. Dr. Worm does bring up one very easy solution in that people should return to hook and catch techniques. I believe that even though hook and catch techniques are not as efficient right now as the more high end industrial techniques, in the long run it will be more than worth it so that people of the future will not be left with a barren sea with no life.


Below is another great article I found while searching the web

1 comment:

CBEMN said...

We will be covering this topic in my other oceans class; it is terribly frustating that Canada has not taken a stronger stand on this issue.
Cathy