A recent study has shed light on the significant damage caused by ship anchoring to the ocean floor.
What’s Going On?
According to Frontiers, a survey conducted by the California-based conservation group KOLASSAL documented 36 anchoring sites beneath Antarctic waters from 2022 to 2023.
During 62 hours of footage, researchers found severe damage to sponge populations and clouds of sediment disturbing the surrounding environment. Remarkably, dangerously sensitive species were found jeopardized nearby.
Matthew Mulrennan, the lead researcher, highlighted concerning findings: “We were on the brink of losing three giant volcano sponges, which are likely the oldest known animals on Earth, with a potential lifespan reaching 15,000 years.”
Why Does the Southern Ocean Matter?
These giant volcano sponges, alongside their marine counterparts, serve crucial functions such as filtering water, carbon storage, and creating habitats for diverse marine life. The frigid Antarctic waters inhibit rapid biological growth and recovery; damage from anchoring can linger for a decade, even in warmer ecosystems.
Alarmingly, numerous species residing in these isolated regions remain unidentified. Destructive anchoring practices could spell disaster for entire species, often without us recognizing their essential contributions to the marine ecosystem.
The Southern Ocean relieves carbon buildup via fauna such as zooplankton, krill, and even the ice itself. Yet, anchoring damage threatens these fragile seabed systems crucial to this process, alongside the broader urgency of ocean trawling, which aims to directly disrupt them.
This fishing method, which scrapes areas of the ocean floor for an abundance of catch, causes extensive bycatch, drastically diminishing the amount of target species while hindering crucial underwater carbon retention.
What’s Being Done About Anchor Damage?
Researchers remain dedicated to understanding the broader implications of achieving damage due to anchoring in Antarctic regions, suspecting the scale is larger than initially thought.
“Anchoring stands as one of the most underestimated threats in ocean conservation; the impact is comparable to the destruction associated with bottom trawling,” stated Mulrennan, according to Frontiers. “It’s a critical environmental issue, yet it’s often ignored due to its elusive nature.”
Going forward, as research continues to unveil the detrimental impacts of anchoring, it will be vital to have government representatives who are prepared to enact protective policies for our oceans.
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These alarming warnings about threats to Earth’s oldest species have appeared first on The Cool Down.
