 An interim three–year ban on trawling was declared to allow a study of the seamounts to be carried out in 1997 which found 242 distinct species of invertebrates.26% to 44% of them could not be identified and are thus believed to be new, and about a third are seemingly present only in the seamount environment.Damage from trawling was also examined, and on the most heavily affected seamounts it had destroyed coral aggregations, removed 46% of species, and reduced net biomass by over half.