Our Opinion: Deep-sea fish are on the line

February 21st, 2007 | Santa Barbara News-Press | Editorial

The overfishing off California and other coastlines around the world has been well-documented, with destructive practices ranging from trawling of the ocean bottom to the lack of proper fishery management plans to help individual species make a comeback.

It's easier to see and monitor what's going on with fishing closer to shore. The impact of decades and decades of unsustainable fishing practices is readily apparent. But what about farther out to sea?

Elliott A. Norse, the president of Marine Conservation Biology Institute in Bellevue, Wash., in 2004 wrote a commentary for the News-Press that "pelagic longliners -- flagged in nations including Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the United States and Spain -- are vessels that play out lines up to tens of miles long, armed with thousands of hooks. . . . There are almost no marine reserves in the high seas, the 64 percent of the wild blue beyond the jurisdiction of individual nations, where tunas, marlin and sharks the size of horses -- and sometimes faster -- crisscross vast expanses, looking for food."

Now Mr. Norse and other marine scientists using new evidence are pointing out the problems of overfishing in the deep oceans, particularly a shift to fishing more than 600 feet below the surface. They presented their research last week at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The pattern seen in coastal waters is repeating. Overfishing depleted stocks in the waters offshore, so commercial fishermen are going farther and farther out, with the same results.

Of particular concern is that this puts some of the least sustainable of all fish stocks at risk, according to a report by the Associated Press.

Mr. Norse notes that certain deep-sea species don't mature until age 40 and live for decades and decades. They reproduce much more slowly.

''Never eat anything that could be older than your grandmother,'' said one of the researchers at the annual meeting, quoting a saying by UCSB professor Milton Love.

The advice is going unheeded as commercial fishermen find no shortage of markets for their catch.

The result: Research presented last week indicates that approximately 40 percent of the deep-sea species living in Canada's ocean waters are endangered or showing major decline. It would take decades for them to come back even if there is an immediate halt to certain fishing in these waters.

Source: Santa Barbara News-Press