|
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Federal regulators were set to vote on a plan to protect deep water corals and other sensitive fish habitat that will likely include a permanent ban on bottom trawling in large tracts of the Pacific Ocean.
The Pacific Fishery Management Council, which advises the federal government on West Coast fishing regulations, was expected to choose a plan Wednesday that will identify "essential fish habitat" in federal waters, which extend from three miles to 200 miles off the coasts of California, Oregon and Washington.
The plan will likely include measures to protect those areas, ranging from restrictions on fishing gear to setting aside areas that will be off-limits to trawling, the technique of dragging weighted nets on the ocean floor in search of rockfish, ling cod and other bottom-dwelling fish.
|