Deep sea fish catch: Orange Roughy
Credit: © WWF UK / Richard Wilson
Before you see it in the supermarket it looks like this... (video clip)
December 2003
Gland, Switzerland - The deep oceans' wealth of marine life, including commercial species of fish, is highly threatened by fast expanding and largely unregulated deep sea fisheries, and should be immediately protected from high seas fishing activities.
According to the report Managing risk and uncertainty in deep-sea fisheries: lessons from Orange Roughy the depletion of fisheries closer to shore and a rising demand for seafood have led to a rapid expansion of deep-sea fisheries. As much as 40 per cent of the world’s trawling grounds are now in waters deeper than 200 metres. The report reveals for example that Orange Roughy fisheries have been ‘boom and bust’, with stocks fished to commercial extinction in as little as four years. The report's case studies - New Zealand, Australia, Southern Indian Ocean, and North-East Atlantic Ocean - show that the management of Orange Roughy fisheries has failed for a number of reasons which need to be addressed without delay. It further stresses that this expanded activity also damages sensitive marines areas, such as seamounts, where many species new to science could face extinction before even being identified. WWF and TRAFFIC are calling for urgent and strong measures, including fishing bans, to be adopted and enforced at the United Nations level in order to protect these areas. More
The global alert comes as the protection of deep-sea fish stocks and/or seamount ecosystems remains at stake within regional bodies and authorities such as OSPAR, ICES, NEAFC and the EC. The second new report Seamounts of the North-East Atlantic launched by WWF and OASIS today clearly underpins that time to safeguard Europe's deep sea treasures is running out.
Read complimentary press release Conservation groups call for moratorium to protect seamounts from High Seas bottom trawling
Download Orange Roughy Report and/or Seamount Report
Read new feature story Worlds lost before they're known?
Read our interview with scientists on board the RV Meteor studying seamounts
Press release (Feb 2004) Sea bed trawling, the greatest threat to deep seas biodiversity