Cato Reef Cato Reef Cato Reef, a part of the Cato Bank, is an area in the Coral Sea off the central coast of Queensland, Australia that is of approximately 21 km by 13 km of this 200 km area, where depth of water is typically less than 17 m. Upon Cato Bank Cato Reef encircles an area of 3.3 km by 1.8 km, area 5 km including a small shallow lagoon which contains Cato Island, a low-relief cay in the west that is approximately 650 by 300 m, area 15 hectares, 6 m high. Close to the southeast corner of Cato
Deep-water coral extended to . Scientists recently deployed concrete reef balls in an attempt to provide habitat for fish and coral. Scientists estimate that trawling has damaged or destroyed 30 to 50 percent of the Norwegian shelf coral area. The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, the European Commission’s main scientific advisor on fisheries and environmental issues in the northeast Atlantic, recommend mapping and closing Europe’s deep corals to fishing trawlers. In 1999, the Norwegian Ministry of Fisheries closed an area of containing the large Sula Reef to bottom trawling. In 2000, an additional area closed, covering about . An