January 31, 2018 — New England fishing officials approved a proposal Tuesday aimed at protecting large swaths of deep-sea corals in the Atlantic from harmful fishing gear.
The New England Fishery Management Council approved the protection of deep-sea corals located in more than 25,000 square-miles located south of Georges Bank, an area that includes four seamounts and 20 deep-sea canyons, said Janice Plante, a spokeswoman for the council.
The council, which met in Portsmouth, N.H., is charged with managing fishery resources from 3 to 200 miles off the coasts of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.
If the measure is implemented, the entire zone would be closed to nearly all bottom-tending fishing gear, which includes trawls, dredges, traps, and gillnets, with one exception. The council allowed an exemption for the Atlantic deep-sea red crab pot fishery, said Plante.
The council had already adopted coral protection zones for the Gulf of Maine last June.
Now, the National Marine Fisheries Service will review the proposed coral protection zones in the Gulf of Maine and the area south of Georges Bank. The service still has to approve and implement the coral protection proposal, a process that could take several months.
“Given the ecological importance and vulnerability of corals, the overarching objective of this amendment is to identify and protect deep-sea corals in the New England region,” said Plante in a statement. “The council’s desire is to balance coral conservation with commercial fishing usage of coral management zones.”
The moves would help “freeze the footprint of destructive fishing as well as protect deep-sea coral areas from current fishing efforts,” according to a statement from the conservation group Oceana.
Read the full story at the Boston Globe