Devastating Impact Of Trawling Revealed In World-First Footage Of Marine Animals Fleeing Nets
“This is something that doesn't have to happen in our marine protected areas. It could end tomorrow, if we choose it to, and it would be to the benefit of every living thing on the planet”
A 2017 study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that #trawling the #ocean floor can strip it of up to 41 percent of the seabed fauna, a loss in #biodiversity that can take over six years to recover. Around a quarter of all wild-caught #seafood is caught using trawlers each year, giving you an idea of the scale of this destruction, but it goes further still.
In fact, the damage we are doing to the seas is even visible from space. You see, each time a #trawler descends its net and charges across the seabed, it stirs up billowing plumes of sediment, creating trails of devastation that have been photographed in #satellite imagery. Some sediment trails span tens of kilometers, and each marks the destruction of an ecosystem that can take years to recover.
