For the fishing industry, the unreachable is now within reach. Today's trawlers are capable of fishing deep-sea canyons and rough seafloor that was once avoided for fear of damaging nets, through advances in bottom trawl technology. To capture one or two target commercial species deep-sea bottom trawl fishing vessels drag huge nets armed with steel plates and heavy rollers across the seabed, plowing up and pulverizing everything in their path. More powerful engines, bigger nets, more precise mapping, and advanced navigational and fish-finding electronics have enabled fishing vessels to drag fishing gear across the ocean bottom as much as two kilometers in depth. Compared to life in shallow waters deep-sea fish live a very slow life and reproduce much slower. Fishing for deep-sea stocks has been compared to mining for minerals due to the reduced capacity of the stocks to withstand exploitation.
International

For the fishing industry, the unreachable is now within reach. Today's trawlers are capable of fishing deep-sea canyons and rough seafloor that was once avoided for fear of damaging nets, through advances in bottom trawl technology. To capture one or two target commercial species deep-sea bottom trawl fishing vessels drag huge nets armed with steel plates and heavy rollers across the seabed, plowing up and pulverizing everything in their path. More powerful engines, bigger nets, more precise mapping, and advanced navigational and fish-finding electronics have enabled fishing vessels to drag fishing gear across the ocean bottom as much as two kilometers in depth. Compared to life in shallow waters deep-sea fish live a very slow life and reproduce much slower. Fishing for deep-sea stocks has been compared to mining for minerals due to the reduced capacity of the stocks to withstand exploitation.

© Greenpeace/Roger Grace

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