The icy standoff between fishermen and environmentalists over trawling may thaw a bit thanks to new and more targeted research on its effects.

James Lindholm, a professor of marine science and policy at CSU Monterey Bay, partnered with commercial fishermen and conservationists to study the effects of bottom trawling near Morro Bay.

Together, they found that trawling with a small-diameter net had a negligible impact when fishing in areas with soft, sandy ocean floor. It confirmed what many fishermen already believed.

“A lot of them had in the back of their minds that these habitats weren’t being impacted and everyone was using too broad a brush in regulating trawling,” Lindholm said.

Lindholm and his colleagues used underwater robots to photograph trawled areas two weeks, six months and one year later. They also varied the intensity of their trawling, from no trawling up to eight passes over the same area. The high intensity trawls did not show any significant difference from the areas that were not trawled at all.

Any small disturbance that trawling leaves behind can fundamentally change the ecosystem on the sea floor, Lindholm said. That’s because even modest dents in the sand can provide cover for bottom-dwellers, changing the dynamics of life in the depths.

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