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Trevor,

Thanks for taking the time to educate me in some detail. This is obviously 
one of those issues where there are two bodies of thought, and insufficient 
communication between them. Your contribution helps shed some light.

If you could, though, consider the following. It would seem to me that no 
survey of damage to the benthos would be the least bit credible, short of having 
a deep-sea submersible accompany a trawler to a remote seamount that had been 
spared serious culling, and to take before-and-after surveys of the same area. 
Would you know of any research organization with the funding and interest to 
accomplish something like this? Is it likely to come to pass?

If not I can only imagine that as remote seamounts belong to no nation, it's 
free pickings for whoever can get there first. I'm heartened by the fact that 
you appear to be coming from the fishermen's side of the equation and care 
deeply about sustainability. But in the absence of precise quantitative data, is 
anyone likely to be dissuaded from  taking a "cut and run" approach to 
utilizing such life zones?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts, or anyone's, on the likelihood that 
these questions will be soon answered.

M. Elvin

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