TheMandarinFish
In Memoriam
see http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/08/11/MN252975.DTL
Depths of despair
Trawlers accused of endangering coral, which provide habitat for Pacific fish
Vast colonies of living coral are being found in the deep ocean off the West Coast, fragile and slow-growing habitat for sea creatures and an important hunting ground for commercial fishing.
Now, even before scientists have had a chance to survey just what's down there, conservationists say the coral is being wrecked by ocean trawlers dragging heavy equipment along the bottom.
Damaged areas might take centuries to recover.
"These are the old-growth forests of the sea," said Mark Powell, director of fish conservation for the Ocean Conservancy, the nation's largest ocean- environmental group, based in Washington, D.C. "We don't have detailed scientific knowledge of every species yet, but it's clear that a damaged coral might take at least 100 years to regenerate."
The issue has received scant attention until recently. In part, that's because the deepwater coral gardens are well hidden from public view, too remote for scuba divers to reach, occupying niches of the ocean that even sunlight can't touch.
"We're talking about a very long-lived seafloor community which may or may not have a lot of practical value in someone's life," said Lance Morgan, chief scientist for the Marine Conservation Biology Institute, a research group headquartered in Redmond, Wash.
Powell's organization is one of several groups now urging new restrictions on deep-sea trawling, which environmentalists say may be mowing down the livelihoods of fishermen along with the coral.
SEEN AS FISH BREEDING GROUND
Although definitive research has yet to be done, it's assumed that the deep coral gardens serve as habitat and breeding grounds for many commercially important species of fish. Going where the fish are, deep trawlers may leave little to catch for the future.
"It's not a sustainable practice to turn the coral to rubble, take the fish and leave," Powell said.
Oceana, another ocean-protection group, has just issued a report, "Deep Sea Corals: Out of Sight, But No Longer Out of Mind," that calls for creation of protected areas, increased monitoring of fishing boats, and possible bans on certain fishing equipment and practices.
Federal authorities also are getting involved. The National Marine Fisheries Service is preparing an environmental impact statement on ocean trawlers in the Pacific, expected to be made public in September.
That report is all but certain to call for at least some new protections, although environmentalists say the Bush administration appears unwilling to move fast enough. State lawmakers also have proposed restrictions against trawling in coastal waters.
Like their more familiar, shallow-water relatives, deep-sea corals appear to be strange plants, brittle and brightly colored, but they are actually colonies of tiny animals whose stony skeletal deposits pile up into vast structures in forms unique to each species. In shallow waters, coral can use sunlight for energy. In the deep, they manage to filter all the nutrients they need from the seawater.
Pacific deep-sea coral have been found and photographed in stunning variety by scientists using submersible vehicles that can venture miles below the surface. Many species are every bit as colorful and delicate as those found in the Caribbean and other popular diving meccas.
Deepwater "red tree" and "bubble gum" corals form intricate branched forms, some specimens growing to be 25 feet wide and 7 feet tall. Other varieties form mounds reaching 500 feet off the seafloor. Black corals are found in the Hecata Bank off the coast of Oregon, while varieties known as hydrocorals populate the inlets of Puget Sound.
Other coral hot spots include the slopes of the Continental Shelf and deepwater canyons off the coast of California, as well as the spectacular Davidson Seamount 75 miles southwest of Monterey. Some of these coral structures may be several thousand years old, perhaps as ancient as the bristlecone pines of the White Mountains, thought to rank among the oldest living organisms on the planet, said Tim Eichenberg, a senior adviser at Oceana.
DEBATE OVER PROTECTIONS
People who depend on the sea to make a living agree that these magical underwater gardens may deserve special protection -- for reasons that go beyond aesthetics and biodiversity.
"When you hurt the ocean ecosystem, you are hurting the fishing industry," said Zeke Grader, longtime leader of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations.
The debate centers on what sort of rules are justified in light of economic impacts and the lack of clear scientific data.
John Gauvin, a marine-resource economist and scientific adviser for the fishing industry off the coasts of Washington and Alaska, said it would be a mistake to jump in too quickly with a lot of new rules, even if the basic goal is laudable.
"Coral is only one aspect of this question of what is the impact of fishing on habitat," he said. "It's just not a simple issue."
For example, new restrictions already have been imposed in the Pacific to limit overfishing of battered rockfish species. But that may have the unintended effect of forcing boats into deeper waters rarely fished before -- exactly the sort of places where the corals are being found.
"We know we'd better protect these habitats," Grader said. "We'd like to know more about them and find out if in fact we are doing some things to harm them."
Corals typically prefer attaching themselves to rocky, sea-bottom surfaces, which can be difficult and costly to reach with conventional fishing equipment.
Now, however, innovations in trawling gear have opened up deeper, rockier areas.
Combined with the collapse of traditional fisheries, experts fear the consequences may be dire for the coral. In sensitive areas, dragging heavy equipment along the sea bottom "may be exactly the wrong kind of fishing you want to do," Grader said.
GOVERNMENT, GREENS AT ODDS
Government authorities say they are keenly aware of the dangers but insist that it's important to move carefully. Coral habitat is patchy, they note, as is the scientific evidence about it.
"We're still trying to figure out what's out there and the association of coral with commercially important fish species," said Doug DeMaster, director of the federal fisheries agency's regional science center in Alaska.
Environmentalists insist that coral must be protected now, even without specific evidence of fishing-related damage in particular areas. They say the burden of proof is on the regulators to show that controversial fishing practices can be done safely. Otherwise, the "precautionary principle" demands that the corals be protected.
"When you have this kind of very fragile community, if we wait until we try to find out every last link between this kind of coral and that kind of fish, it will be much too late and all the coral will be gone," said Mike Hirshfield,
chief scientist at Oceana.
"The biggest tragedy," he said, "is that every time scientists go down in one of their submersibles and see what's down there, they find new species. So we're running the risk of these new species going extinct before they've even been described."
Still, such risks may not automatically justify sweeping new regulations that may not accomplish the intended goal. Certainly not according to federal officials studying the matter, who argue that care must be taken to ensure that the impact on the fishing industry is minimized while doing the most good for threatened ocean habitat.
"We do know that certain types of fishing practices in some environments can disturb those environments," said Jon Kurland, the federal fishery agency's assistant regional administrator for habitat conservation in Alaska. "We want to be precautionary to some degree, but we also don't want to impose costs on the industry that would have huge socioeconomic consequences."
Corals and fishermen need "balanced decisions," so that both might have some chance to survive, he said.
Depths of despair
Trawlers accused of endangering coral, which provide habitat for Pacific fish
Vast colonies of living coral are being found in the deep ocean off the West Coast, fragile and slow-growing habitat for sea creatures and an important hunting ground for commercial fishing.
Now, even before scientists have had a chance to survey just what's down there, conservationists say the coral is being wrecked by ocean trawlers dragging heavy equipment along the bottom.
Damaged areas might take centuries to recover.
"These are the old-growth forests of the sea," said Mark Powell, director of fish conservation for the Ocean Conservancy, the nation's largest ocean- environmental group, based in Washington, D.C. "We don't have detailed scientific knowledge of every species yet, but it's clear that a damaged coral might take at least 100 years to regenerate."
The issue has received scant attention until recently. In part, that's because the deepwater coral gardens are well hidden from public view, too remote for scuba divers to reach, occupying niches of the ocean that even sunlight can't touch.
"We're talking about a very long-lived seafloor community which may or may not have a lot of practical value in someone's life," said Lance Morgan, chief scientist for the Marine Conservation Biology Institute, a research group headquartered in Redmond, Wash.
Powell's organization is one of several groups now urging new restrictions on deep-sea trawling, which environmentalists say may be mowing down the livelihoods of fishermen along with the coral.
SEEN AS FISH BREEDING GROUND
Although definitive research has yet to be done, it's assumed that the deep coral gardens serve as habitat and breeding grounds for many commercially important species of fish. Going where the fish are, deep trawlers may leave little to catch for the future.
"It's not a sustainable practice to turn the coral to rubble, take the fish and leave," Powell said.
Oceana, another ocean-protection group, has just issued a report, "Deep Sea Corals: Out of Sight, But No Longer Out of Mind," that calls for creation of protected areas, increased monitoring of fishing boats, and possible bans on certain fishing equipment and practices.
Federal authorities also are getting involved. The National Marine Fisheries Service is preparing an environmental impact statement on ocean trawlers in the Pacific, expected to be made public in September.
That report is all but certain to call for at least some new protections, although environmentalists say the Bush administration appears unwilling to move fast enough. State lawmakers also have proposed restrictions against trawling in coastal waters.
Like their more familiar, shallow-water relatives, deep-sea corals appear to be strange plants, brittle and brightly colored, but they are actually colonies of tiny animals whose stony skeletal deposits pile up into vast structures in forms unique to each species. In shallow waters, coral can use sunlight for energy. In the deep, they manage to filter all the nutrients they need from the seawater.
Pacific deep-sea coral have been found and photographed in stunning variety by scientists using submersible vehicles that can venture miles below the surface. Many species are every bit as colorful and delicate as those found in the Caribbean and other popular diving meccas.
Deepwater "red tree" and "bubble gum" corals form intricate branched forms, some specimens growing to be 25 feet wide and 7 feet tall. Other varieties form mounds reaching 500 feet off the seafloor. Black corals are found in the Hecata Bank off the coast of Oregon, while varieties known as hydrocorals populate the inlets of Puget Sound.
Other coral hot spots include the slopes of the Continental Shelf and deepwater canyons off the coast of California, as well as the spectacular Davidson Seamount 75 miles southwest of Monterey. Some of these coral structures may be several thousand years old, perhaps as ancient as the bristlecone pines of the White Mountains, thought to rank among the oldest living organisms on the planet, said Tim Eichenberg, a senior adviser at Oceana.
DEBATE OVER PROTECTIONS
People who depend on the sea to make a living agree that these magical underwater gardens may deserve special protection -- for reasons that go beyond aesthetics and biodiversity.
"When you hurt the ocean ecosystem, you are hurting the fishing industry," said Zeke Grader, longtime leader of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations.
The debate centers on what sort of rules are justified in light of economic impacts and the lack of clear scientific data.
John Gauvin, a marine-resource economist and scientific adviser for the fishing industry off the coasts of Washington and Alaska, said it would be a mistake to jump in too quickly with a lot of new rules, even if the basic goal is laudable.
"Coral is only one aspect of this question of what is the impact of fishing on habitat," he said. "It's just not a simple issue."
For example, new restrictions already have been imposed in the Pacific to limit overfishing of battered rockfish species. But that may have the unintended effect of forcing boats into deeper waters rarely fished before -- exactly the sort of places where the corals are being found.
"We know we'd better protect these habitats," Grader said. "We'd like to know more about them and find out if in fact we are doing some things to harm them."
Corals typically prefer attaching themselves to rocky, sea-bottom surfaces, which can be difficult and costly to reach with conventional fishing equipment.
Now, however, innovations in trawling gear have opened up deeper, rockier areas.
Combined with the collapse of traditional fisheries, experts fear the consequences may be dire for the coral. In sensitive areas, dragging heavy equipment along the sea bottom "may be exactly the wrong kind of fishing you want to do," Grader said.
GOVERNMENT, GREENS AT ODDS
Government authorities say they are keenly aware of the dangers but insist that it's important to move carefully. Coral habitat is patchy, they note, as is the scientific evidence about it.
"We're still trying to figure out what's out there and the association of coral with commercially important fish species," said Doug DeMaster, director of the federal fisheries agency's regional science center in Alaska.
Environmentalists insist that coral must be protected now, even without specific evidence of fishing-related damage in particular areas. They say the burden of proof is on the regulators to show that controversial fishing practices can be done safely. Otherwise, the "precautionary principle" demands that the corals be protected.
"When you have this kind of very fragile community, if we wait until we try to find out every last link between this kind of coral and that kind of fish, it will be much too late and all the coral will be gone," said Mike Hirshfield,
chief scientist at Oceana.
"The biggest tragedy," he said, "is that every time scientists go down in one of their submersibles and see what's down there, they find new species. So we're running the risk of these new species going extinct before they've even been described."
Still, such risks may not automatically justify sweeping new regulations that may not accomplish the intended goal. Certainly not according to federal officials studying the matter, who argue that care must be taken to ensure that the impact on the fishing industry is minimized while doing the most good for threatened ocean habitat.
"We do know that certain types of fishing practices in some environments can disturb those environments," said Jon Kurland, the federal fishery agency's assistant regional administrator for habitat conservation in Alaska. "We want to be precautionary to some degree, but we also don't want to impose costs on the industry that would have huge socioeconomic consequences."
Corals and fishermen need "balanced decisions," so that both might have some chance to survive, he said.
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