Renewable Energy Revolution

Commercial fishing - as it would look on land

 
This illustration was published in the January 2004 issue of Popular Science, to accompany a story titled, "Murder of the Bounty: The Seas Empty - Industrial fishing practices are killing the oceans, endangering a key food resource.

"The caption under the graphic stated that "Industrial-size fishing boats called bottom trawlers are designed to net the biggest catch in the least amount of time. In the process, they grind up fragile ecosystems such as coral reefs and kill countless non-target species, including dolphins and sea turtles. The trawlers attract little attention, however, because they operate out of view.

"Each year, bottom trawlers damage an area of seafloor twice the size of the continental United States."

"If a machine with a trawler's capacity were to be utilitized on land to harvest trees, it would clear-cut the equivalent of an 18-mile-long, 200-foot-wide swath of forest in just 4 hours - a degree of devastation that would surely mobilize powerful opposition ..."

(As posted earlier today at wind farmer's almanac - www.windfarmersalmanac.com)

In 1994 large areas on or near Georges Bank, southeast of Cape Cod, were declared off-limits to fishing for species such as cod, yellowtail flounder and haddock, to give these depleted stocks a chance to recover. By 2000 the devastated scallop population on Georges Bank had increased 14-fold...  

See that story in Popular Science here, and comment below.