Canadian Fishermen Fight For Freedumb To Bottom-Trawl Glass Sponges Thought Extinct Since Jurassic

A recently discovered B.C. colony of glass sponges — described as a marine “herd of dinosaurs” due to their supposed extinction 30 million years ago — is now at risk of destruction by fisheries.

That’s unless protective bans are implemented in an area of Howe Sound — as similar bans were put in place for B.C.’s Hecate Strait in the north after scientists realized the sponges that were first discovered near Haida Gwaii in the 1980s weren’t fossilized. They were actually alive and teeming with small marine life squirming in and out of the 1,000 kilometre-squared reefs for protection from predators.

The glass reefs later discovered off the coast of the Lower Mainland are much smaller, said Sabine Jessen of Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society B.C., and scientists have yet to determine the extent of damage from trawling vessels currently frequenting the area.

“The sponges here in the Strait of Georgia were discovered in 2001 … we’ve been trying to get fishing closures on them for the last few years,” she said. “We’re hoping for next year’s fishing plans that there will be fishing closures for the sponge reefs and in the future we would like to see Marine Protected Areas as part of a whole network (of MPAs) along the coast.”

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http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/2013/10/15/21198076.html