Human Impact
The primary human impact on deep-water corals is from deep-water trawling. Trawlers drag nets across the ocean floor, disturbing sediments, breaking and destroying deep-water corals. Another harmful method is long line fishing.
Oil and gas exploration also damage deep-water coral.
Deep-water corals grow slowly, so recovery takes much longer than in shallow waters where nutrients and food-providing zooxanthellae are far more abundant.
In a study during 2001 to 2003, a study of a reef of Lophelia pertusa in the Atlantic off Canada found that the corals were often broken in unnatural ways. And the ocean floor displayed scars and overturned boulders from trawling.
Read more about this topic: Deep-water Coral
Famous quotes containing the words human and/or impact:
“We all ask ourselves the question why is it that some of us are killed while others remain. The only answer is our faith in the wisdom of a supreme being. If he has chosen us to live there must be a reason. I have tried to reckon out why. Perhaps he has saved us because we are needed as witnesses to remind each other, and our folks, and folks everywhere that war is too full of horrors for human beings.”
—Michael Blankfort. Lewis Milestone. Dickerman (Jack Webb)
“Conquest is the missionary of valour, and the hard impact of military virtues beats meanness out of the world.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)