by Mike Morrell
In June this year, the Living Oceans Society’s “Finding Coral” expedition set out from Vancouver on a two week cruise to the North Coast to document BC’s deepwater corals. The chartered research vessel Cape Flattery carried Living Oceans Society’s (LOS) staff from their base in Sointula along with invited marinescientists and technical support people. The investigators used two deep-diving manned submersibles capable of carrying observers as deep as 500 metres.
The free-ranging submersibles were equipped with manipulator arms, lights and cameras, which allowed their pilots to observe, document and collect samples of what they found. Six different submersible pilots, including Jennifer Lash, Executive Director of LOS, dove at 7 locations in Queen Charlotte Sound, Hecate Strait, Haida Gwaii and the northern mainland coast. They documented at least 16 species of corals ranging from solitary orange true corals less than 3cm in diameter to the spectacular red tree corals (Primnoa), whose branching colonies can reach a height of over 2 metres. The website www.findingcoral.com provides videos and still images as well as written accounts of the voyage; the videos of Day 9 (a coral forest in Juan Perez Sound) and Day 10 (a more general account of deep sea corals) are particularly worth watching.
The Corals
BC’s deepwater corals are fascinating and strikingly beautiful. They live attached to rocky bottom at depths of hundreds of metres. They may attach to small cobbles or to large bedrock outcrops, but they are not found on sandy or silty bottom. Because their habitat is so difficult for observers to reach, our corals are hard to study and their biology is poorly known. Deepwater corals are related to, but different from, the much better studied tropical reef-forming corals. All of them belong to the phylum that includes jellyfish and sea anemones, and all have tentacles with stinging cells for collecting food.
Many species of both groups are colonial: tiny individual polyps share a common rigid skeleton. Unlike the tropical corals, our deepwater corals do not form massive stony reefs, but some kinds occur in large groups referred to as forests or meadows. Like the tropical corals, the larger deepwater coral colonies create complex habitats that are utilized by many other species, including fishes, brittle stars, crabs, shrimps and many other kinds of invertebrates. The diverse communities associated with coral forests are unique to this habitat and are significant elements of deepwater ecosystems. Large coral colonies grow very slowly, and the larger ones may be a century or more old.
Threats to Corals
Worldwide it appears that damage by fishing gear is the principal threat to deepwater corals. All gear fished on the bottom probably has an impact, and the consensus of fisheries scientists is that otter trawls dragged along the bottom for flatfish, rockfish and other bottom-dwellers are among the most damaging.
Most of what is known about coral distribution in BC is based on observations of the incidental catch or bycatch by bottom trawls. Since 1996 all groundfish trawlers in BC have been required to hire onboard observers who record all the target catch as well as the unintended bycatch of corals, sponges and other non-target species in every tow of the net. In 2004, LOS researcher Jeff Ardron analyzed trawl observer reports from 1996 through 2002. Ardron’s analysis showed that, in the six year period, trawlers took at least 295 tonnes of deepwater corals and sponges in the process of harvesting 234,000 tonnes of the fish species they were seeking.
In a paper published by DFO in 2006, Ardron and DFO scientist Glen Jamieson showed that 95% of the catch of corals and sponges was taken in 12 areas which together comprise about 7.5% of BC’s continental shelf and slope. Some of these areas were preferred fishing grounds for the trawl fleet; together, these areas of high bycatch accounted for 24% of all trawl tows and 30% of their total catch during the period of the study. Ardron and Jamieson recommended that the 12 areas be considered for protected status for conservation of coral and sponge habitats.
Attempts at Coral Protection Are Not New
In 2000, DFO proposed voluntary trawling closures of four areas of critical habitat for reef-forming glass sponges, which, like corals, form complex deepwater habitat that supports a unique community. The closed areas were made mandatory through fishery regulations in 2002. These areas accounted for about one third of the combined coral and sponge bycatch, but they are not adequate to eliminate most of the impact on corals. DFO acknowledges the need for more protection for coral and has drafted a policy to protect more areas. However, detailed documentation of the locations in need of protection is currently a missing link in the process. DFO is now in the process of defining ecologically and biologically significant areas on the North Coast of BC that merit special management but has made little further progress on documenting the distribution of deepwater corals. The Living Oceans Society expedition to collect further information about the corals was an attempt to move the process along and to raise public awareness.
Marine Protected Areas on the BC Coast
Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are areas of ocean designated and managed for the protection of special features. They are used increasingly by management agencies around the world for marine conservation. Canada currently holds about 9,000 square kilometres under some type of protection on the west coast; this amounts to just under 2% of Canada’s Pacific waters. Although in the 1993 UN Convention on Biodiversity Canada committed to protecting 10 to 30% of federal waters in an MPA network by 2012, currently less than 0.5% of Canadian federal waters on both coasts are protected. For comparison, the US now has 5% of its waters in federal MPAs and Australia protects 10%.
In BC, DFO has designated all waters of the continental shelf and slope from northern Vancouver Island to the Alaska border as a priority area for marine planning. DFO calls the area the Pacific North Coast Integrated Management Area (PNCIMA). The strategy is to engage all stakeholders and interests (including First Nations, government, fishermen and environmental groups) in developing an ecosystem-based management plan for the area. The public process began last March with a two-day meeting in Richmond attended by 300 people.
Although the PNCIMA area has been designated a priority region in DFO’s Oceans Action Plan since 2004, federal funding to support the project is uncertain. As a new project in a federal department whose budget is already inadequate, PNCIMA’s future seems precarious.
Fisheries
The creation of MPAs that prohibit fishing is likely to translate into lower catches, at least in the short term. But if protected areas are well designed, catch may not decline by much. If MPAs are part of a comprehensive plan that includes good fishery and habitat management outside of the MPAs, fish catches may actually increase in the long run.
The BC fishermen’s union (UFAWU – CAW) has passed a policy resolution in support of MPAs for conservation purposes. The union’s support is conditional on an MPA process that incorporates the knowledge of commercial fishermen and First Nations; is based on sound science and clear goals; and provides transition assistance for affected commercial fishermen. Trawlers are not interested in catching coral. Much of the coral habitat is on rough rocky bottom which they try to avoid. The uneven bottom can damage trawl gear, and coral entangled in the net is very difficult to remove.
Bruce Turris is Executive Manager of the Canadian Groundfish Research and Conservation Society, representing the groundfish trawl industry. According to Turris, the trawlers do not oppose MPAs to protect coral aggregations and other sensitive bottom habitats. He points out that it was the trawl industry that initially located the glass sponge reefs, and they worked with DFO to formalize the closures.
Later they voluntarily enlarged the sponge closure areas in Hecate Strait. What is important to the industry is that they be part of the process of defining the boundaries of closure areas. They are now working with DFO, ENGOs and other stakeholders in developing a sponge and coral protection strategy under the federal Oceans Act. The trawlers and other commercial fishing interests are also participants in the Pacific North Coast Integrated Management Area process.
The situation isn’t always that clear. Early in the Finding Coral expedition, the LOS vessel Cape Flattery encountered several trawlers working off Cape St James at the south end of Haida Gwaii. In her online report for June 12, Jennifer Lash reported on a close encounter between Cape Flattery and one of the trawlers that felt to her like intimidation, though she noted the possibility that the trawler might just have been curious about “the new boat on the block.”
Norman Sigmund, the skipper of one of the trawlers, Viking Moon, said that he was indeed curious, since he didn’t recognize the vessel and initially thought it might be a blackcod vessel setting fish traps that the trawlers would want to avoid. Sigmund said there was never any intention to harass or intimidate the LOS expedition. The trawlers established radio contact with Cape Flattery a few hours after the incident, and there were no further problems.
Lash ended her report with the hope that “Maybe we can all take a deep breath and chart a new course.” LOS is providing new information on corals and their communities and is raising the public profile of the situation. DFO is sponsoring a public process leading to ecosystem-based management. All parties seem to be at the table. Hopefully, these are the elements of a new course.
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Mike Morrell is is an independent fishery biologist and a member of the Watershed Sentinel Board. He lives on Denman Island. For more information see the Living Oceans Socety website: www.findingcoral.com