The more research is conducted on the effects of trawling, the harder it is to make a case for why it is allowed—anywhere, ever. It's especially hard to argue for high seas bottom trawling, the kind that dredges up roughly twice the area of the United States every year and, since the United Nations couldn't agree on terms, is currently unregulated. Now, a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciencesadds to the mounting evidence that our hunger for piscine protein is laying waste to parts of the planet we have never even seen, leading to lasting changes in the sea floor that prevent recovery.
Trawls are bulldozing millions of square miles of the sea floor every year. A new study in PNAS says that if such fishing is sustained, this is all that will be left. Image from Gewin 2004 Trawling isn't a new method of fishing—for ...
