Satellites Reveal Illegal Bottom Trawling in Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems

Satellites Reveal Illegal Bottom Trawling in Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems

At the depths of the seafloor, life moves and grows eerily slowly. Under crushing pressure and shrouded in darkness, banks of sprawling corals form nurseries for schools of deep-sea fish while the crystalline limbs of 15,000-year-old glass sponges filter bacteria from the water. While most of these habitats are unexplored, some of what we know about species from these ancient ecosystems is dredged up to the surface, caught in the fishing gear of…