An environmental group is petitioning the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to list 43 cold-water corals as threatened species.

Biologist Kiersten Lippmann of the Center for Biological Diversity said the corals face extinction because of climate change, including warming and ocean acidification, plus commercial fishing, especially trawling.

She said in the group's announcement that trawling can destroy many square miles of corals in a single day.

She said corals form three-dimensional fish habitat similar in structure to tropical coral reefs.

Lippman saids Alaska corals occur in greatest abundance a few miles off the Aleutian Islands, in Bering Sea underwater canyons and on submerged volcanoes in the Gulf of Alaska.

NOAA has 90 days to respond to the petition.