Raping the Oceans

A quarter of the world’s seafood caught in the ocean is collected through bottom-trawling, a method that harms seafloor ecosystems. 

The technique involves dragging a net along the ocean’s shelves and slopes to gather shrimp, cod, rockfish, sole and a variety of bottom-dwelling fish and shellfish. Other forms of marine life and habitats can be killed or disturbed unintentionally as the nets travel across the seafloor. 

80 per cent of the seafloor in the Adriatic Sea, a part of the Mediterranean Sea found to have the most intense footprint, is trawled.