Bottom Trawl Impacts Far Less than Claimed if Accurate Spatial Measurements Used
SEAFOODNEWS.COM By Peggy Parker - November 25, 2015
At one of the seminars during last weeks Fish Expo in Seattle, Scientists from the University of Washington and colleagues unveiled some of their latest research on bottom trawling impacts. They suggested that better data shows the impact of bottom trawls on sea floors around the world is lower than often claimed by opponents of trawling.
Dr. Ricardo Amoroso of the University of Washington and the National University of Comahue in Argentina, refuted commonly held claims from NGOs about the extent of areas impacted by bottom trawling.
Amoroso studied effects in more than thirty areas around the world that have been traditionally been fished using bottom trawls.
“Trawling is not everywhere,” he said. “Fishing effort tends to be aggregated in very specific areas, which tend to be impacted multiple times a year. Trawl effort is highly concentrated, with many areas untrawled. A large fraction of effort take place on a small portion of the bottom.”
Amoroso noted that using a finer scale of measurement — one kilometer instead of 40...
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