Seamount Security Seamounts are a common ecosystem. Te oceans hold as many as 100,000 of them. Yet scientists know very little about them. Each dive brings new surprises. New species are oſten discovered. Unfortunately, many seamounts—including


Las Gemelas—are crisscrossed with fishing lines. Divers find the lines strewn around rocks and snagged on corals. Fishing boats called trawlers heave dragnets with heavy chains on them across seamounts. Tey hope to catch spiny lobsters and fish, like mackerel and orange roughy. But the trawling is damaging to seamounts.


It can destroy entire habitats. Corals are killed. Sponges, crabs, sea cucumbers, and many kinds of sea worms are harmed when the sediment they live on and inside is scraped clean. Tese habitats have a hard time recovering.


Despite their number, scientists have studied only a few hundred seamounts. Tat’s due, in large part, because seamounts are spread out, hard to reach, and hard to study. When seamounts get damaged, we don’t


know what we might be losing. Some species may be destroyed before we even know they exist. Life at these locations must be protected. We must learn more about seamounts to keep them healthy.


midnight snapper


venus flytrap sea anemone


WORDWISE


biodiversity: the many different kinds of plants and animals on Earth or in a habitat or ecosystem


ecosystem: the plants, animals, and non-living things that make up an environment and have an affect on each other


seamount: an underwater mountain formed by volcanic activity


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