Bycatch
For a few commercial target species, thousands of tons of coral are hauled up only to be thrown back dead or dying, along with huge quantities of unwanted bycatch. In a matter of a few weeks or months, bottom trawl fishing can destroy what took many thousands of years to create.

New Zealand Fisheries Ministry photos
View 185 images taken on board bottom trawlers in 2004 and 2005 by fisheries observers obtained by Greenpeace from the New Zealand Ministry of Fisheries under the Official Information Act. The photos show a wide diversity of deep-sea life that is being dragged up from the deep-sea floor including ancient Gorgonian corals and CITES-listed endangered black coral.





North Atlantic
Photographs of bycatch from bottom trawl fisheries in the North Atlantic, including photos taken during Greenpeace expeditions to document bottom trawling in the Grand Banks off Canada in the North West Atlantic in July 2005 and in the North Atlantic in October 2004. View images

For more photos from these expeditions visit the expedition shipblogs:
Greenpeace: Defending the Deep, North West Atlantic 2005
Greenpeace Deep Sea Defenders, North Atlantic 2004

Tasman Sea
Images from Greenpeace expeditions to the Tasman Sea in 2004 and 2005 to highlight the destructive impacts of bottom trawling.
View images

For more photos from these expeditions visit the expedition shipblogs, Greenpeace: Defending the Deep

Where high resolution images are available for download, such images are available for free editorial use by media professionals, provided the copyright / photo credit information given below is reproduced and relevant organisation(s) credited.
In all other cases the relevant organisations and individuals must be contacted.