Geez,
When will this crap about "endangered" species and a "static" environment ever end.
Every species, save man, is either extinct,due to natural causes, or endangered. Man, with his ability to control his species environment, is immune to this law. And, with this control, can temporarily decide which species can survive beyond its'time.
But nowhere in environmental thinking do I ever see the always has been, always will be, fact; the environment changes. Without any human influence the environment of 1,000 years ago bore little resemblance to that of 100,000 years ago.
This religious like fetish that Earth's environment, and species, are to remain as they are now is a conceit with parallel. With or without human influence the environment will change and species will disappear.
Why do I even bother posting to a comments section?
I only care about the bloggers thoughts,JK in this instance,and never read comments. Guess I just want to piss a bunch of people off.

"Every species, save man, is either extinct, due to natural causes, or endangered."

Ummm... Rat? Pigeon? Fire Ant? QED. I'll also note that in a world fitting your description, you could add homo sapiens to that list. If we destroy enough of the structure around us, we are NOT immune (Ethiopia, anyone?).

What we're doing to the deep sea is akin to throwing grenades into a dark room. Just because you can't easily see the damage doesn't mean it doesn't matter. There are in fact 2 arguments to be made - one humanocentric, one not.

Humanocentric: These ecosystems have a also a "net present value" for their future existence, one we're simply squandering. It's like someone living off $200k in retirement savings at age 30. Considering the fact that the ocean is a major human protein source, many current fishing methods are like farming with semi-salt water... a practice that has caused agricultural and societal collapse more than once in human history, as yields decline year over year.

We're seeing the same trends on the ocean, and several fisheries have simply collapsed. More will follow unless we change. If you think the geopolitical "zone of disorder" is bad now, give the biosphere a few more whacks and see how much worse it can get.

Robert Kaplan's work on international disorder and anarchy, and a book called "Top Guns & Toxic Whales", are both highly recommended.

There's also an argument that says Steve O'Shea's point goes beyond any one species to an entire ecosystem - one we don't know very much about, either in absolute terms or in terms of its relationship to other ocean ecosystems. Such ecosystems have value in themselves, and destroying them would mean a repetition of the kinds of mistakes our civilization and learning are supposed to help us avoid.