However, neither NMFS nor the Councils have fulfilled this legal requirement, despite mounting scientific evidence that mobile bottom fishing gear, such as bottom trawls and dredges, routinely destroy seabed habitat vital to fish and marine life. AOC believes H.R. 3059 will require the Regional Councils and NMFS to fulfill the habitat conservation directives of the 1996 Sustainable Fisheries Act in at least 16 critical areas.
Bottom trawls are large, weighted nets towed behind boats.
A typical U.S. scallop dredge has a 15-foot wide steel frame which drags a large chain bag through the seabed. These fishing gear types kill marine organisms by crushing, burying or exposing them to predators. Cod and lobster are just two of the commercially-valuable species that depend upon complex sea floor habitats. Without the structures necessary for feeding, breeding, and hiding from predators, fish simply cannot survive, and depleted fish stocks cannot recover to healthy population levels. H.R. 3059 would prohibit trawling and dredging in sixteen sensitive marine areas off the U.S. coast until NMFS determines the full impacts of bottom trawling and other mobile fishing gear on biodiversity, marine habitats and productivity.