Using and Abusing to Extinction

As mentioned in another thread, humanity is multiplying at such a rate that our earth is unable to sustain us. And, as with every other species since the beginning of time, once a saturation point has been reached, disease, starvation, and in-fighting will inevitably take it's toll.

We, in our arrogance, use and abuse everything around us to the point that we destroy all we touch. In our greed we have no concern for the damage that we do to the environment or to the species that live in that environment.

In the following thread, I would like to discuss what we are doing to the world that surrounds us...that supports us.

I found this article this morning:

EU officials warn of disappearing cod


By RAF CASERT, Associated Press Writer Raf Casert, Associated Press Writer – Sat Oct 17, 3:45 am ET


BRUSSELS – The European Union's executive body is calling for sharp cuts in the amount of cod fishermen can catch next year, pointing to estimates that the fish is close to extinction in some major fishing areas around Europe.

Officials warned Friday that only steep catch cuts will prevent the disappearance of a species prized for centuries for its flaky white flesh.

The European Commission said recent studies showed cod catches in some areas are far outstripping the rate of reproduction. It is calling for up to 25 percent cuts in some areas.

"We are not that far away from a situation of complete collapse," said Jose Rodriguez, a marine biologist with the environmental group Oceana. He and other environmentalists said pressure from the fishing industry had kept quotas at levels too high to sustain a viable populations around Europe, while lack of enforcement meant illegal fishing made the problem worse.

Scientists estimated that in the 1970s there were more than 250,000 tons of cod in fishing grounds in the North Sea, eastern English Channel and Scandinavia's Skagerrak strait. In recent years, however, stocks have dropped to 50,000 tons.

The European Commission said Friday it would seek in 2010 to cut the catch in some fishing grounds around Britain, France, Spain and much of Scandinavia from 5,700 tons to 4,250 tons.

In the Mediterranean, bluefin tuna has been overfished for years to satisfy increasing world demand for sushi and sashimi. The tuna population is now a fraction of what it was a few decades ago, but the EU's Mediterranean nations last month refused to impose even a temporary ban.

Oceana estimated that illegal fishing doubled the amount of tuna caught.
Meanwhile cod, which once sustained vibrant fishing communities from Portugal to Britain to Canada, is increasingly consumed by the ton as salt cod and fish-and-chips.

"People don't ask for fish and chips, they ask for cod and chips," said Mike Guo, a manager at Great Fish and Chips in Essex, England. "It's a traditional dish."
The depletion of the species has caused the decay and disappearance of hundreds of fishing villages on both sides of the Atlantic.

Overfishing off Canada's maritime provinces exhausted the world's richest cod grounds and forced the government to impose a fishing moratorium. The collapse wiped out more than 42,000 jobs, and 18 years later the fish have still not returned.

"It was devastating," said Tom Hedderson, minister of fisheries in Newfoundland. "This affected whole communities ... all up and down the coast here in Newfoundland and Labrador."

He welcomed the EU call to cut catches by 25 percent, but suggested more drastic cuts may be needed.

Some Canadian scientists believe the collapse of cod stocks off Newfoundland and Nova Scotia changed the marine ecosystem so dramatically that it may be impossible for cod to recover. Off Newfoundland alone, cod stocks once exceeded more than 400,000 tons but now scale only 5,500 tons, Hedderson said.
There are signs of recovery of Atlantic cod off New England, however, after years of conservation efforts. And international regulators have reopened some areas off Canada for limited fishing, Canada's Fisheries and Oceans Department spokesman Scott Cantin said.

The fishing industry in Europe, however, is in decline. The number of vessels in the 15 nations that were part of the EU in 1995 has dropped from 104,000 then to 81,000 in 2006. In Britain, employment in the fishing sector sank from 21,600 in 1990 to 16,100 in 2006.

The EU Commission's demand for cod cuts will be discussed by the bloc's 27-member states in a Dec. 14-15 meeting, when the fishing quotas for 2010 will be finalized.

"The scientific prognosis for most stocks is not encouraging, with many in a worse state than last year," Britain's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said Friday. "This, combined with the difficult economic climate, will mean that the negotiations will be even more challenging this time around."
Keeping fishermen in port with excessive quotas will add to their economic woes, said Bertie Armstrong of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation.

Norway and the EU jointly oversee cod stocks in North Sea, with each party regulating the stocks in its waters.

Norway and the EU will begin annual negotiations on cod stock management in November. Ann Kristin Westberg, deputy director-general of Norway's Fishery Ministry, said her country was unlikely to accept a 25 percent quota.

"We probably want to have it lower," she said. "We would like to point out that stock the EU are involved in managing are in terrible shape."

The cod harvest from the Georges Bank and Gulf of Maine fishing grounds, the two primary New England fishing grounds, in 2007 totaled 3,868 metric tons, the biggest catch since 2003 but far under the landings of the 1980s when fishermen often caught more than 20,000 tons annually.

"The Gulf of Maine stock is responding to the recovery plan, and the Georges Bank stock is recovering but not as much," said Teri Frady of NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, Massachussets.
___
Associated Press writers Clarke Canfield in Portland, Maine, Rob Gillies in Toronto, Karl Ritter in Stockholm and Rachel Leamon and Maresa Patience in London contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091017/ap_on_sc/eu_eu_threatened_fish

	Endangered Species Sashimi: The Plight Of Bluefin Tuna

Bluefin tuna, one of the world's most highly prized marine species, have met their plight. These tuna, which the Monterey Bay Aquarium's reputed Seafood Watch list describes as "severely over-fished," are native to the Northern Atlantic and the Mediterranean, but are also commercially cultivated off the coast of Japan. Bluefin is particularly prized by sushi lovers, who covet its buttery toro (fatty belly meat). At Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market, a single fish can fetch upwards of $100,000.




Seafood Watch asserts that the species' Atlantic population has declined by nearly 90% since the 1970s, in part because the massive fish are slow to mature, and are often caught before they have had a chance to spawn. Although the EU regulators banned trawling for the fish last spring in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean, the stock has recently crept even closer to collapse.
Andrew C. Revkin over at Dot Earth writes that a new study, published by Science Magazine, highlights the ocean-crossing habits of two distinct populations of Atlantic bluefin tuna as a key contributing force to the devastation of the species:

Some fish that originate in the Mediterranean end up cruising the east coast of North America, inflating population estimates there. But commercial catches of large bluefin in those waters -- mostly bound for the sushi trade -- are still almost entirely tuna that originated in the Gulf, according to the study. Carl Safina, a marine biologist and ocean-conservation campaigner, said a strict moratorium on bluefin fishing in American waters was the only way to stave off destruction of the Gulf breeding population.

I asked fisheries officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration about the study, and they replied that it provided more evidence of overfishing by Europe. The study, said Monica Allen, a spokeswoman for the fisheries office, "points out that the smaller western stock is 'disproportionately affected by higher fishing rates in the eastern management zone.' The U.S. has pushed for strong international action to stop overfishing of bluefin tuna by eastern harvesters in the Mediterranean and the eastern Atlantic Ocean."

Alarmingly, although the tuna are widely considered critically endangered, they continue to be pursued and consumed with great zeal. Last month, Treehugger's Matthew McDermott reported that undercover investigators have discovered three Nobu restaurants in London serving endangered Atlantic bluefin -- and passing it off as non-endangered tuna:

According to an article which ran in the Telegraph a little over a week ago, undercover investigators from Greenpeace asked the staff at three London branches of Nobu what type of tuna different menu items only described in Japanese came from. Though told that none of them was from Atlantic bluefin, when DNA testing was done on the samples two out of three times the fish was Atlantic bluefin, while the third test was inconclusive.

While it is not illegal to serve Atlantic bluefin, many chefs in London have stopped serving it owing to it being listed as critically endangered by sustainable seafood watch groups

Reuters reports that the Italian government has taken an equally cavalier stance on bluefin:

Italy overshot its quota of bluefin tuna last year by five times, showing that rules meant to save the giant fish from extinction were failing, the conservationist group WWF said on Tuesday in a report.

WWF said Italy was 700 tonnes over quota and has a fishing fleet capable of landing twice what it is legally allowed.
"Italy's illegal activity in the Mediterranean bluefin tuna fishery is not just a threat to this magnificent species, but also jeopardizes the future of those trying to fish this resource in a sustainable and legal way," said Michele Candotti of WWF, formerly the World Wildlife Fund.
WWF is calling for a moratorium on bluefin tuna hunting to allow stocks to recover from what it says are levels that endanger the species' survival.

The actor Ted Dansen, who serves on the board of Oceana, a foundation that researches and campaigns on marine issues, recently wrote an impassioned opinion article for BBC News on tuna. He too calls for an immediate stop to bluefin fishing:

Bluefin need a generational breather to prevent total collapse. In the meantime, the data gathered by researchers aboard Oceana's MarViva Med tells us that the quotas that are in place are not effectively enforced and are ignored by the tuna fleet.

Even as a lay person, not a scientist, it's abundantly clear to me that overfishing is pushing our oceans towards an irreversible collapse. Bluefin tuna is just one species that's already at the brink of extinction. We can bring the tuna back, but only if we act now.

Saving the mighty bluefin will require not just changes in government regulations but also changing people's minds. Only when individuals stop demanding or even accepting the fish on their dinner plates will demand diminish and fishermen take heed. As Fen Montaigne wrote in National Geographic last year,

The world must begin viewing the creatures that inhabit the sea much as it looks at wildlife on land. Only when fish are seen as wild things deserving of protection, only when the Mediterranean bluefin is thought to be as magnificent as the Alaska grizzly or the African leopard, will depletion of the world's oceans come to an end.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/16/bluefin-imperiled_n_132752.html

They have always said that the universe provides for everyone... however there is not enough for greed.

Do the math. 6.6 billion people on the planet.

if they all ate one of something. that would be 6.6 billion pieces of that once a day.

times three, for three meals, 19.8 billion... times seven (week) 138.6 billion. That is only in one week.

a month

554.4 billion... that is a half of a trillion in a month.

for a year.. Too high to count.

that is a lot.

Now see that as water. That is a lot of natural resources. So it's no wonder we are depleting the stock of earth. That is just for one of something. That doesn't not take into consideration when we enjoy our food, and decide to have a second helping.

Add in snacks, and snacks on the snacks. That is a whole lot of food/water being consumed.

The Facts


If forests are the Earth's lungs, Mother Nature is having a tough time breathing these days. According to the environmental organization Greenpeace, 80 percent of the planet's ancient forests have already been destroyed or damaged and a large portion of what's left is under threat from illegal and destructive logging. The group says an area of natural forest the size of a football field is being chopped down every two seconds. The Nature Conservancy reports that over 32 million acres of the planet's natural forests are lost each year due to logging, much of it illegal. Forests are also being decimated by cattle grazing, agriculture, mining, oil extraction, population expansion, dams, pipelines and other infrastructure projects.

Deforestation puts the earth at risk in a number of serious ways. Among their many functions, trees and plants play an important role as climate stabilizers by removing heat-trapping greenhouse gases (including water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, ozone) from the air and holding them in their leaves, roots, wood and soil. When trees are destroyed, the greenhouse gases they've been hanging onto go back into the atmosphere, where they speed up global warming. Scientists predict the consequences of global warming will be wide-ranging and include an increase in floods, heat waves, droughts, wildfires, species extinction and the spread of disease. It's estimated that 20 to 25 percent of all carbon emissions are the result of deforestation and land use changes, about the same (or even slightly higher) percentage of emissions that come from cars and trucks in the United States.

Deforestation also negatively impacts biodiversity. An estimated 70 percent of the planet's animals and plants reside in forests; if these habitats disappear, so will many of their residents. The Nature Conservancy reports that tropical rainforests occupy only 12 percent of the globe but contain over half of the world's known animal species and plants. If the rainforests continue to vanish at their current rate, they could be totally wiped out as functioning ecosystems within 100 years. Forests also play a key role in protecting watersheds and preventing soil erosion, flooding and landslides. Another devastating consequence of deforestation is its effect on global poverty. The World Wildlife Fund states that forest resources sustain most of the planet's 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty, who rely on forests for their basic needs and livelihoods.

A driving force behind deforestation is money. Forest products represent a $270 billion-a-year industry, according to the World Bank. From paper to furniture to building materials, the world—particularly first-world nations—has a seemingly insatiable appetite for things made from trees. The BBC reports that "At least half of the world's timber and nearly three-quarters of world's paper is consumed by a mere 22% of the world's population, those living in the United States, Europe and Japan." While logging is regulated and practiced using sustainable methods in some parts of the globe, in other places, particularly impoverished and developing nations, logging takes place illegally and to devastating effect. According to The Nature Conservancy, "As much as 30 percent of hardwood lumber and plywood traded globally is of suspicious origin." The group reports that in Indonesia alone, approximately 70 percent of timber exports are illegal. The problem extends beyond just those places where forests are being destroyed illegally. The Energy, Environment and Development Programme at Chatham House in London states on its Web site, illegal-logging.info, that "Consumer countries contribute to the problem by importing timber and wood products without ensuring that they are legally sourced." Greenpeace reports that "illegal logging costs timber producing countries between $10-15 billion per year in lost revenue," money that could be going toward vital public works projects. Additionally, unsafe working conditions and child labor have been associated with illegal logging, the profits from which have been used to fund civil wars and organized crime.

Besides logging, other big businesses contributing to deforestation are cattle ranching and farming. In South America, vast portions of rainforest have been destroyed—often by slash and burn methods—in order to create pastureland for cattle. It's been estimated that 55 square feet of rainforest are destroyed for every quarter-pounder that comes from rainforest cows. In recent years, the Amazon rainforest has also faced rapid destruction due to increased farming of soy, which is used to feed livestock raised for fast-food chains in Europe. However, some efforts have been made to stop this trend. In 2006, after a campaign spearheaded by Greenpeace, McDonald's pledged not to market chicken fed with soy grown in the Amazon rainforest.

Reducing deforestation is an enormous challenge that will require government regulation and cooperation on an international scale. As the world wakes up to the dangers of climate change and decides to take action, combating destruction of the planet's forests should be an integral part of that fight.

HOTSPOTS


Amazon Basin: The world's largest rainforest is located in the 1.2 billion-acre Amazon Basin, which spans nine South American nations. The Amazon is home to an enormous array of plants and animals and it's estimated that one square kilometer of Amazon rainforest could include over 75,000 kinds of trees. According to Greenpeace, approximately 60 to 80 percent of the logging taking place in the Amazon rainforest, 60 percent of which is located in Brazil, is illegal. Illegal-logging.info reports that the Amazon is vanishing at a rate of 20,000 miles a year.
Congo Basin: Located in Central Africa, the 500 million-acre Congo Basin, which includes such nations as Cameroon, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo, is home to 80 percent of Africa's rainforests and represents one quarter of the planet's total rainforests. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) reports that the Congo Basin contains "one of the richest concentrations of biodiversity in the world&with some 10,000 types of plants, 400 mammals and 900 varieties of butterfly." The region is increasingly susceptible to deforestation, with 50 million hectares (1 hectare equals 2.47 acres) of rainforest controlled by logging companies, according to Greenpeace. The WWF states that "The escalating global demand for raw materials and energy from the Congo Basin means that 70 percent of the region's forests could be lost by 2040." Within the Congo Basin, the Democratic Republic of Congo alone contains over half of Africa's rainforests. Greenpeace reports that by 2050, forest clearance in this economically challenged nation of almost 66 million people will release up to 34.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide, approximately the same as the United Kingdom's total carbon dioxide emissions over the last 60 years. The destruction of the rainforests due to logging and agriculture has also made it easier for humans to venture deeper into remote areas to hunt wild animals for bushmeat. Hunting and habitat loss have caused such creatures as chimpanzees and gorillas in the Congo to become endangered.

Indonesia: An estimated 70 percent of this Southeast Asia island nation's timber exports are illegal. Each year, "Illegal logging costs Indonesia at least $600 million in lost royalties and export taxes," according to a 2007 Washington Post report. Additionally, the New York Times notes that "Indonesia releases more carbon dioxide through deforestation than any other country." The Asia-Pacific region as a whole has lost 88 percent of its original frontier forest, according to Illegal-logging.info, which states that "Much of the illicit timber flows across porous borders, where neighboring states often legitimize the timber by issuing paperwork to mask its true origin. Smuggling has also been documented across the region—from Indonesia to Malaysia, Singapore and China, from Cambodia to Thailand and Vietnam, and from Myanmar (Burma) to China."

Siberia and the Russian Far East: It's estimated that half of all logging is this region is illegal and that the forests of the Russian Far East could be wiped out within two decades, according to a 2007 report in The Washington Post. Loose government controls and corruption have made it possible for vast tracts of forest to be illegally harvested. Much of the wood is exported to China (now the world's leading importer of forest products), where it is often turned into furniture or building materials and eventually shipped to the U.S.

Central America: While illegal logging is a problem in Central America—an estimated 70 percent of all logging in Nicaragua is illegal—the region's population expansion in recent years has been a driving force behind deforestation. Conservation and economic development are often at odds in this poor part of the planet, where deforestation has occurred to serve subsistence purposes, including as intensified demand for fire wood and additional land for agriculture. According to illegal-logging.info, the average Central American family living below the poverty line burns 12 tons of wood annually. Deforestation also sets the stage for increased flooding and landslides in Central America's hilly terrain."

Timeline


In recent decades, deforestation has occurred at an alarming rate in certain parts of the planet; however, it is not an entirely modern problem. Humans have been destroying forestland for centuries for the purposes of farming, fuel, hunting and building materials.

— 750,000 years ago: Humans begin using wood for fire.

— 60,000 years ago: Humans start using wood as a building material.

— 7,000 B.C.: Humans begin using fire to clear forestlands for farming and hunting.

— 105 A.D.: Chinese court official Ts'ai Lun is credited with invention of papermaking. His primary materials included rags, hemp, fishing net and tree bark.

— 1100 to 1500: Population growth in Europe leads to significant deforestation, as forestland is cleared for fuel, agriculture and building materials.

— Early 1600s: Logging begins in Maine when British explorers chop down trees on Mohegan Island, according to the Patten Lumbermen's Museum. By the early 1830s, Bangor is the world's biggest lumber shipping center, with up to 3,000 ships in port. Over 8.7 trillion board feet of lumber are moved out of Bangor between 1832 and 1888.

— 1690: William Rittenhouse establishes America's first paper mill in Germantown (now Philadelphia), Pennsylvania.

— 1722: The first Europeans arrive at Easter Island, a small, barren island in the Pacific Ocean, covered with hundreds of large stone statues. It's believed a thriving society once existed on the island, until deforestation —resulting from over-harvesting and environmental factors —led to its collapse.

— Mid-1800s: The process of making paper from wood fiber is developed. Until this time, paper was often made from rags and cloth.

— 1905: Gifford Pinchot, known as the father of American conservation, becomes the first head of the U.S. Forest Service, an agency of the Department of Agriculture. In 1905, there were 60 national forests covering 56 million acres; five years later, there were 150 national forests covering 172 million acres. Today, the Forest Service manages 193 million acres of national forests and grasslands.

— 1970s and 1980s: New regulations open up the Brazilian Amazon to peasant farmers, who frequently use slash-and-burn methods to clear the forestland for agriculture. At the same time, ranchers clear vast tracts of forest for cattle grazing.

— Late 1980s and early 1990s: Controversy and court battles erupt between loggers and environmentalists in Oregon and Washington over the northern spotted owl, an endangered species whose natural hunting grounds in old-growth forests are threatened by logging activities. Despite protests from timber workers that their livelihoods would be destroyed, millions of acres of owl habitat are eventually designated as off-limits for logging.

— 1993: The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is established as an international, non-profit organization that promotes stewardship of the planet's forests. The FSC certifies products that support responsible forest management.

— 1990s: A spruce bark beetle outbreak destroys almost 4 million acres of mature forest in Alaska's Kenai Peninsula. The outbreak, spurred on by global warming, leads to forest fires and impacts wildlife, watersheds and people's property and livelihoods; the effects will be felt for decades.

— January 2001: The U.S. Forest Service adopts the Roadless Area Conservation Rule to protect over 58 million acres of national forestland from road building and resource extraction.

— May 2005: Bush Administration repeals the Roadless Rule, opening over 58 million acres of U.S. national forests to logging, road construction, mining, oil exploration and other forms of development.

— August 2005: Hurricane Katrina hits U.S. Gulf Coast and destroys 320 million trees.

— September 2006: A U.S. District Court judge rules that the Bush Administration illegally repealed the Roadless Rule and reinstates it.

http://www.history.com/states.do?action=detail&state=Deforestation&contentType=State_Generic&contentId=60568&parentId=earth

I think perhaps people feel a little uncomfortable reading such things and this could be why there aren't many responses to this thread, as we are all responsible, even if indirectly. Also I should think most may feel there is little they can do to help and so feel powerless.
It's quite shocking to see these things in black and white and yet we all know about it, man has been destroying the earth and everything on it for all the time he has been here (discounting certain respectful peoples.)

Our waters are being depleted just as carelessly as our land and the majority is down to greed, it's appalling.

I think you are correct in this, Violet. Sometimes we don't know or understand just what we are doing to the world around us. Then, when someone brings it to our attention, we don't want to accept the fact that our actions are causing such dire circumstances in our environment.

Here is another prime example of our greed and utter lack of care for our environment......


Bottom trawlers decried as ocean clearcutters



December 15, 1998
Web posted at: 1:20 PM EST
By Environmental News Network staff

(ENN) -- An extremely common industrial fishing method, known as bottom trawling, has the same devastating impact on the ocean bottom as clearcutting forests has on the Earth's surface, according to a series of reports published in the December issue of The Journal from the Society for Conservation Biology.

Trawling vessels drag huge nets for thousands of miles along estuaries, bays and the continental shelves, pulling tons of marine creatures, rocks and mud. Les Watling of the University of Maine in Walpole and Elliott Norse of the Marine Conservation Biology Institute in Redmond, Wash., estimate that trawlers scrape nearly 6 million square miles a year, the equivalent of half the world's continental shelves. This is twice the area of the lower 48 United States and about 150 times larger than the area of forests clearcut each year.



And on top of that, fishermen trawl pretty much wherever and whenever they want because there are very few government restrictions in place -- the frontier mentality still reigns in high-seas fisheries, according to the report.

The damage left behind by trawling is immense. Many of us retain in our mind's eye the storybook picture we had as kids of the bottom of the ocean as one vast wet sandy desert. The truth is that the bottom of the ocean is a complex series of ecosystems, made up mud, seagrass beds, coral reefs, rocky reefs and cobbles. Each sea bed type supports a different community of sea life, and provides protection from predators, food and a safe place to raise young.

Bottom trawling rips all that up. The nets take everything in their paths and the weighted lines dragging the ocean floor crush, bury and expose any remaining wildlife. By leveling the ocean floor, the food chain is disturbed, the hiding places have been removed and conditions favorable to faster growing species take over.

Seafloor recovery could take centuries. Many seafloor inhabitants are slow growing and long lived and are therefore slow to repopulate and rebuild their structures in areas that have been disturbed. Some species of sponges can reach 50 years old, some clams can live for more than 200 years and individual gorgoinan corals have been estimated to live 500 years or more. Some tube-dwelling species can only rebuild homes during an early stage in their development and are therefore left permanently exposed by trawl gear.

Bottom trawling also causes abnormally high nutrient levels in the ocean by stirring up the sediment. Most continental shelf environments typically get half their nutrients from the steady influx of organic material decaying in the sediment. But by stirring up the sediment, bottom trawling releases a huge pulse of nitrogen and other nutrients into the water.

Cynthia Pilskaln of the University of Maine in Orono and her colleagues estimate that re-suspending as little as a tenth of an inch of sediment could more than triple nutrient levels in the sea water.

Higher nutrient levels could increase noxious phytoplankton such as those in red tides, notorious for causing mass fish kills, and shift the balance of plankton populations, which in turn could shift the balance of the fish and other marine life that feed on them.

While the federal government has jurisdiction over eight times as much sea as land, only a tiny area of the ocean is protected from commercial fishing -- the 110-square-mile Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Commercial fishing is permitted in the other 11 national marine sanctuaries. This lack of protection is attributable to opposition from the fishing industry and lack of public awareness, says Tatiana Brailovskaya of the Nereus Project in Newcastle, Maine.

Continued unregulated bottom trawling will eventually lead to more severe collapses of worldwide fisheries, say many of the scientists who contributed to Conservation Biology's special report issue. In shrimp trawls in some parts of the world, 90 percent of the catch is bycatch, thrown back dead or dying. Also, as preferred fish become fewer, the boats are fishing for species which were formerly not considered marketable, further depleting the ocean.

The Marine Conservation Biology Institute and American Oceans Campaign announced the publication of the findings Monday and are calling for the creation of true reserves where fishing is banned.
Why has it taken so long to notice the destruction of sea floor ecosystems?

"The oceans, unlike forests, still look like oceans even after we've removed their contents," says James Carlton of Williams College-Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Conn.

The majority of work presented in The Journal of Conservation Biology was financially supported by the NOAA Regional Marine Research Program.

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/science/9812/15/bottomtrawlers.yoto/index.html

I've not read it all yet but that is something which has never crossed my mind to be honest.