Alaska’s Bering Sea is home to one of the most remarkable places in the world, “the Grand Canyons of the Sea.”
These canyons are over a mile and a half deep and home to fish, crab, skates, endangered seals, orcas, and humpback whales. It’s a truly remarkable ecosystem that starts with the fragile corals and sponges on the seafloor. Tragically, this ecosystem is under threat from industrial fishing fleets that carve up the corals and sponges with their trawl nets. Bottom-tending fishing gear–especially trawl nets–destroys fragile corals and sponges that provide this essential habitat, including spawning and nursery areas for fish, crab, and other marine species.
The North Pacific Fisheries Management Council oversees the fisheries of the Bering Sea, and they’ve earned the respect of the oceans conservation world for managing the area as well as they have–up until now. Despite repeated requests from conservationists to protect this vital canyon habitat from fishing impacts, the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, has so far, taken no action to conserve this vital ecosystem.
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