The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, a federal panel that regulates recreational and commercial fishing from three to 200 miles offshore, is working hard to protect the reefs. In this effort the council is proposing to designate more than 23,000 square miles of the Atlantic Ocean off the southeastern United States as protected areas. It is said that fishermen could still work the waters but the protection would bar certain kinds of bottom-disturbing fishing gear and prohibit dropping anchors or traps that could damage the reefs.
The council said that the proposed protected areas include 122 square miles of deepwater coral reef off Cape Lookout, a 52-square-mile area off Cape Fear and more than 23,000 square miles in an elbow-shaped area extending from South Carolina to southern Florida. Steve Ross, a fish ecologist and research professor at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, informed that there hidden a lot of new species that nobody knew about.
According to Ross researchers have identified four new species of fish, a new type of starfish and several new species of crustaceans living in the deepwater reefs. He added that these reefs are irreplaceable, once destroyed, it may be impossible for them to re-establish themselves. They are slow-growing.
Sean McKeon, president of the N.C. Fisheries Association, which represents commercial fishermen and seafood dealers, told that fishermen generally object to placing areas of the ocean off-limits to fishing. Sam Ray, a commercial fisherman based in Charleston, S.C., typically works about 90 miles offshore, using a hook and line to catch wreckfish, a large grouper like fish that has a flaky, mild white meat and frequents the reefs.
