The following slideshow of images have been released by New Zealand's Ministry
of Fisheries through New Zealand's Official Information Act (Freedom of Information).
They show bycatch from bottom trawlers fishing for orange roughy both within
the New Zealand EEZ and in international waters.
They are just some of the photos that were taken by the small number of fisheries observers on New Zealand vessels during the 2004 and 2005 fishing years.
Amongst the species shown are CITES-listed black corals, gorgonian corals, deep-sea crabs and octopus. The presence of corals shows that virgin areas are being bottom trawled.
While
these images tell a disturbing story, what is equally disturbing is the unseen.
The unseen destruction of biodiversity that didn’t make
it to the surface; the many species that died from plumes of sediment and
the life that is tossed back overboard when nobody is looking.