The Terrifying Impact of Deep Sea Bottom Trawling | Hacker News Reader

The Terrifying Impact of Deep Sea Bottom Trawling

penelope-jolicoeur.com

12 pointsnmc5 comments

This page lost me when it claimed that most coral exists in the deep sea kilometers below the surface. Anyone who scuba dives recognizes that coral prefers warm water and filtered sunlight and is rarely found more than 30 meters below the surface.[1]

There are a lot of reasons to oppose deep sea bottom trawling, but this infographic based on naive and erroneous assumptions may do more harm than good.

[1] http://www.coral.org/resources/about_coral_reefs/coral_overv...

Thank you for sharing this scuba diving experience. However, please run a broader research before crying wolf.

There _is_ such a thing as "deep sea coral". The third paragraph on the corresponding Wikipedia article [1] states that "cold-water genus Lophelia surviv[es] as deep as 3,000 metres (9,800 ft)". You can check out the _Deep Sea Corals Collected by the Lamont Geological Observatory_ [2] for more scientific information.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral [2] http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/dspace/handle/2246/2502

I said that coral rarely exists below 30 meters - and that was in contrast to the OP who said that "most corals live in the deep sea." As for research, beyond the scuba mention I also provided a citation from a reputable organization whose mission is to preserve coral. But in any case you're missing the main point: that the OP is conflating the diverse fauna found around warm-water tropical reefs with sea life found in in colder waters.

As I said, there are plenty of reasons to oppose deep sea trawling and I hope the ban is successful. But an infographic that implies that there are colorful Finding-Nemo-esque reefs a kilometer down with "roads, hospitals, kindergartens, dorms" doesn't help. It just makes supporters of the ban look naive.

I quote this from one of those images there: "Water makes up 98% of the Earth's volume." A quick estimate on my part, while making some large assumptions (a uniform layer of 11km lying on top of a perfect sphere of radius 6356.8km), says it is 0.5% water by volume. I don't know what else you are trying to sell but I lost all interest at that point.

Deep sea trawling is bad, because it's part of a wave of depopulating our oceans. (This is compounded increased acidity from CO2, plastic pollution and other things)

Spinning a story that's strong on cute graphics but light on true facts doesn't help.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com