More than a hundred prominent scientists are urging federal officials to prevent the return of damaging, bottom trawl fishing to waters that have protected fish habitat and spawning areas in New England for nearly two decades.
Some five thousand square miles of protected seabed—an area equal to the size of Connecticut—could be at risk under the proposal that officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries service are now considering. The scientists warn that such a move would likely “damage the marine ecosystem upon which all of our fisheries and other sectors in the coastal economy totally depend.”

These closed areas were put in place following the collapse of fish populations in the 1990s and protect juvenile fish, spawning areas and seafloor habitat.…