In 1901, the New Zealand Times published a warning about trawling in the Hauraki Gulf. It read:

“Trawling is working fearful havoc on the feeding beds and spawning grounds on which we depend for our future supply…”

That was 124 years ago. Trawling is the industrial dragging of large, weighted nets across the seafloor to catch fish en masse. It’s a blunt, destructive tool – tearing through delicate marine habitats, crushing benthic life, and stirring up sediment that chokes out what little may be left.