As numbers of many commercial species of fish have fallen due to overfishing, deep-sea fisheries have expanded rapidly. However, deep-sea species are extremely sensitive to any fishing pressure as they are slow growing and take many years to reach maturity. While inshore fish stocks may recover in a few years or decades, deep sea stocks may take a few centuries to recover, and there is no guarantee recovery will occur at all.

Such vulnerable species include deepwater sharks, Portuguese dogfish and leafscale gulper sharks, which ICES has advised zero catch for. WWF calls for the closure to extend to all deep-sea fisheries, including the orange roughy.

"WWF is appalled at the continued mismanagement of deep-sea fish stocks and urges the Commission to take immediate action to prevent their total collapse. By ignoring ICES advice in the past few years, the EU Member States have done nothing to protect these vulnerable species," said Charlotte Mogensen, Fisheries Policy Officer at WWF European Policy Office.

The orange roughy has been practically wiped out in 20 years, argentines crashed in the Irish deepwater fishery in 11000, roundnose grenadiers suffer very high levels of juvenile mortality in trawls, and for many other species the state of the stocks is unknown.

These species are also often of unusual shapes, making them more prone to being caught especially when immature, and even small, unwanted species are caught in large numbers. The levels of wasteful discards of immature and non-target fish species are very high.

Although deep water sharks are not a commercial species in UK, there are deep sea shark fisheries working in Scottish and International waters, caught by Spanish owned boats but registered as UK vessels.

"In the light of the new ICES advice the UK Government must now support the European Commission’s emergency closure of deep-water bottom-set gillnet fisheries. ICES have found that deep-sea shark stocks are in a ‘very poor state’ and the UK Government must reconsider its previous lack of support for the closure of these fisheries to stop these already depleted stocks being pushed towards collapse" said Claire Pescod, Marine Policy Officer at WWF Scotland.
Deepwater sharks are also caught accidentally as bycatch in other deep sea fisheries such as Orange Roughy. A closure of all deep sea fisheries would mean that fragile stocks and species are able to begin their long road to recovery.

"Without the immediate closure of these unsustainable deep water fisheries, many of our marine species face an uncertain future, with extinction very high on the list of options. As these species could take centuries, as opposed to decades, to recover from fishing, WWF demands that Member States seize this final opportunity to save these uniquely vulnerable species in European waters - before it really is too late", said Charlotte Mogensen, Fisheries Policy Officer at WWF European Policy Office.

Note to editors:
ICES (International Council in the Exploration of the Seas) is the organisation that coordinates and promotes marine research in the North Atlantic. ICES acts as a meeting point for a community of more than 1600 marine scientists from 19 countries around the North Atlantic. The latest ICES advice was published on 17 October 2005.