Deep Sea Corals
A Vital Habitat in Danger because it Slips the Radar
Federal policies are not working to protect deep-sea essential fish habitat. Cold water corals need more attention drawn to them, just like tropical corals.
About Deep-Sea, Cold Water Corals
The majority of corals live in colder water and are extremely important to the biodiversity and sustainability of fisheries. They are just as important, if not more so, than tropical corals. Deep-sea corals provide shelter, food, and breeding grounds for many species of fish and invertebrates. Some of these species include grouper and rockfish. Many corals are hundreds, even thousands of years old and can grow six to eight feet or more.
There is still much to learn about deep-sea corals. Scientists are using them to learn more about the earth, potentially including information on how to ease or stop severe climate change. Some corals are even being used to develop new drugs that may help fight cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, asthma, pain and viral infections.
Current Threat
However, they continue to be greatly impacted by destructive fishing practices such as bottom trawling. Trawlers are huge vessels that drag weighted nets over the seafloor to catch fish and shrimp. Trawling destroys deep-sea corals when the wheels of a trawl trample over them, and the netting snags the coral bodies. If trawling continues in the same area, then there is no chance for the coral to recover because of their slow growth patterns.
A Solution?
Deep-sea corals were listed decades ago as essential fish habitat. However, while the government classified them as important habitat, they never established or directed an enforcement mechanism to make sure that the corals would be protected. So fishermen were essentially free to fish within the deep-sea coral habitats, and as fishing technology improved, coral destruction sped up.
The reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act in 2006 included new legislation aimed at protecting deep-sea corals. It stated that deep-sea coral habitat should be protected without having to be proven as essential fish habitat (an exemption to a rule that makes it harder to be protected, even though deep-sea corals were classified essential habitat decades ago), and that the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shall start researching the deep-sea corals to learn more about them.
This is a start at the federal level, but real progress will come once the public realizes how important these coral are. The tropical reefs have tourism that protects them. Scientists and activists need to find a way to make deep-sea corals appeal to the public before they lose the opportunity to uncover the corals’ capabilities to society.
For More Information:
Marine Conservation Biology Institute
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
