Bottom Trawling

Bottom Trawling, a fishing technique widely employed due to its high yield (despite its low efficiency), indiscriminately scrapes along the seafloor, effectively harvesting anything in its path (Kumar, 2006). The technique has been likened to the terrestrial process of clear-cutting forestry, and has similar impacts in that it has a tendency to leave the affected paths nearly devoid of life (Watling, 1998).

• Small invertebrates living in the sediment, bottom dwelling fish, and other fauna in the benthic environment are uprooted, relocated, and often killed in the process.
  
  
• Sensitive corals that single-handedly create the foundation for entire ecosystems can be dredged up and killed much faster than they can replace themselves. This results in far-reaching impacts on organisms beyond the coral itself that makes its home in this habitat (Morgan, 2005).
  
  
• Finally, the delicate geochemical balance of the water can be disturbed due to resuspension of minerals, chemicals, and organics stirred up during bottom trawling (Kumar, 2006).

This type of fishing is legal in much on the world and throughout most of the oceans. Quantifying the damage done by these methods can be difficult for even skilled fishery mangers.