Subject: re: Atlantic Corals: Colorful and Vulnerable

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 9:26 AM
Subject: re: Atlantic Corals: Colorful and Vulnerable
To: "letters@nytimes.com"


To the Editor:
    That "[t]he canyons that are being considered for protection are,
[in Dr. Auster's words] refuges for organisms that used to be more
widespread. " points to the elephant in the room. Our continental
shelf has been bulldozed by bottom-trawlers over the last half
century. Whole ecosystems have been demolished before we ever knew
they existed.
  Of course these canyon environments must be protected. But the
bigger need is to ban bottom trawling as we banned drift-nets.
Barry Haskell Levine


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/10/science/atlantic-corals-colorful-and-vulnerable.html?_r=0