The impact of bottom trawling on benthic fauna of the North Sea

Abstract

This paper reviews the impact of bottom trawling — beam- or groundtrawl — on animals of the sea bed. The area of study is restricted to the North Sea, however, the final conclusions have a far wider application. Protests against the use of trawls date back to the period of their introduction; for northwest Europe this was the thirteenth century, and it still evokes protests up to the present day. Trawling does affect benthic life, the trawl penetrates up to 30 mm into the soil, depending on the substrate. All types of trawls are basically similar in their action on the bed. Beam trawls with tickler chains catch much more benthos than do ground trawls without tickler chains. Some groups of animals suffer far more damage than others, e.g. echinoderms. It is not unlikely that in the long-term a shift in species and numbers may occur along the same lines such as has been found in the German Wadden Sea where polychaetes are on the incline and molluscs and crustaceans on the decline.