Europe's fisheries chief flew in the face of scientific advice on Thursday and called for hefty quota cuts for exotic deep-sea species, some of which can live up to 150 years, instead of an outright ban on fishing, according to Reuters. Bearing names like orange roughy, black scabbardfish, greater silver smelt and roundnose grenadier, Europe's deep-sea fish grow and reproduce far more slowly than fish in shallower waters and are far more vulnerable to overfishing. With the depletion of EU commercial stocks such as cod and hake in recent years, deep water fish have become an attractive catch as trawlers switch from traditional fishing grounds. Scientists have warned that many are at risk of disappearing and have urged a total ban on fishing them. But the European Commission says it prefers a volume cut of 33 percent for next year from 2005 in annual catches shared around the 25 EU states, then a further 33-percent cut in 2008. "Many of the current TACs (total allowable catches) for deep-sea stocks have proved to be well beyond actual catches," EU Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg said in a statement. "For a number of stocks, the catches in 2005 were less than 40 percent of the quota, with the result that TACs have failed to limit fishing pressure on these fragile stocks," he said.
