F I S H I N G   G E A R

Please use our A-Z to navigate this site or return HOME

This is happening every day of the years, 365 days a year, fishing nets are killing marine mammals and reptiles, sharks and other game fish by the thousands

Approximately 46% of the 79 thousand tons of ocean plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is made up of fishing nets, some as large as football fields, according to the study published in March 2018 in Scientific Reports, which shocked the researchers themselves who expected the percentage to be closer to 20%, rather 2%. 

Fishing nets lost, abandoned or discarded at sea – also known as “ghost nets” – can continue killing indiscriminately for decades and decades, entangling or suffocating countless fish, sharks, whales, dolphins, sea turtles, seals and marine birds every year. An estimated 30% percent of the decline in some fish populations is a result of discarded fishing equipment, while more than 70% of marine animal entanglements involve abandoned plastic fishing nets.

Fishing gear accounts for roughly 10% of that debris: between 500,000 to 1 million tons of fishing gear are discarded or lost in the ocean every year. Discarded nets, lines, and ropes now make up about 46% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This marine plastic has a name: ghost fishing gear.

...

NYLON -  This is a nylon fishing net with float line attached to small plastic floats. Nylon is a very strong and durable engineering grade plastic that is also used to make bearings for machinery, printers and many more applications. It is not the plastic that is at fault, it is the way we are using it for fishing.

SEA SHEPHERD

The crew of the 'Sam Simon' stayed behind in the freezing Southern Ocean, spending weeks hauling in a 72km-long gillnet abandoned by poachers as they fled. On five consecutive campaigns for Operation Milagro in the Sea of Cortez, their crew retrieved over 180km of ghost nets in addition to the illegal fishing nets responsible for killing the critically endangered vaquita porpoise. In 2015 Sea Shepherd France launched Operation Mare Nostrum to remove ghost nets from the Mediterranean Sea, where they even recovered an abandoned trawling net in a protected marine area just off the coast of France where all fishing is prohibited.

In 2018 Sea Shepherd UK launched Operation Ghostnet, an ongoing campaign using small fast boats and divers to remove hazardous ghost nets and other abandoned fishing gear from coastal areas around England, Scotland, and Wales. Operation Siso, Sea Shepherd’s campaign to confiscate illegal fishing gear found off Italy’s Mediterranean coast, was named for the young sperm whale whose migration past the Aeolian Islands ended when he became entangled in a driftnet and died. In August last year, around 300 endangered sea turtles were discovered dead off Mexico’s southern coast, trapped in a single abandoned fishing net.

This proactive organizations needs all the help it can get, where protected areas are ruthlessly exploited by uncaring fishermen - who know these conservation areas are not patrolled by the authorities. Indeed, it appears that conservation areas are not routinely patrolled for enforcement purposes at all. And this the fishing community know, and exploit, knowing that protected areas will contain stocks that unprotected areas do not.

IMPORTANT FISHING NET ALERT

Please don't try and retrieve abandoned or illegal fishing gear from the water yourself. It can be extremely dangerous for you and even harmful for the wildlife trapped in it if you don't have experience. It's safer to alert your local authorities if you spot one/any.

PROBLEM - From 2000 to 2012, the National Marine Fisheries Service reported an average of 11 large whales entangled in ghost nets every year along the US west coast. From 2002 to 2010, 870 nets were recovered in Washington (state) with over 32,000 marine animals trapped inside. Ghost gear is estimated to account for 10% of all marine litter.

According to the SeaDoc Society, each ghost net kills $20,000 worth of Dungeness crab over 10 years. The Virginia Institute of Marine Science calculated that ghost crab pots capture 1.25 million blue crabs each year in the Chesapeake Bay alone.

In May 2016, the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) recovered 10 tonnes of abandoned nets within the Australian Exclusive Economic Zone and Torres Strait protected zone perimeters. One protected turtle was rescued.

Some commercial fisherman use gillnets that are suspended in the sea by flotation buoys, such as glass floats, along one edge. In this way they can form a vertical wall hundreds of metres long, where any fish within a certain size range can be caught. If not collected by fishermen these nets can continue to catch fish until the weight of the catch exceeds the buoyancy of the floats. The net then sinks, and the fish are devoured by bottom-dwelling crustaceans and other fish. Then the floats pull the net up again and the cycle continues. Given the high-quality synthetics that are used today, the destruction can continue for a long time.

BYCATCH

Fisheries often use large-scale nets that are indiscriminate and catch whatever comes along; sea turtle, dolphin, or shark. Bycatch is a large contributor to sea turtle deaths. Longline, trawl, and gillnet fishing are three types of fishing with the most sea turtle accidents. Deaths occur often because of drowning, where the sea turtle was ensnared and could not come up for air.

GHOST NETS -  A sea turtle is ensnared in this fishing net that has been abandoned by fishermen. Fishing nets are made of plastic that is very tough and float around killing marine wildlife and when they finally sink, cause more harm to ocean ecosystems. Ghost nets are fishing nets that have been left or lost in the ocean by fishermen. These nets, often nearly invisible in the dim light, can be left tangled on a rocky reef or drifting in the open sea. They can entangle fish, dolphins, sea turtles, sharks, dugongs, crocodiles, seabirds, crabs, and other creatures, including the occasional human diver. Acting as designed, the nets restrict movement, causing starvation, laceration and infection, and suffocation in those that need to return to the surface to breathe.

LINKS & REFERENCE

https://act.seashepherdglobal.org/

ABS - BIOMAGNIFICATION - BP DEEPWATER - CANCER - CARRIER BAGS - CLOTHING - COTTON BUDS - DDT - FISHING NETS

FUKUSHIMA - HEAVY METALS - MARINE LITTER - MICROBEADS - MICRO PLASTICS - NYLON - OCEAN GYRES - OCEAN WASTE

 PACKAGING - PCBS - PET - PLASTIC - PLASTICS -  POLYCARBONATE - POLYSTYRENE - POLYPROPYLENE - POLYTHENE - POPS

  PVC - SHOES - SINGLE USE - SOUP - STRAWS - WATER

GLOBAL WASTE PROBLEM - The above views of planet earth as global views show us the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific ocean gyres and estimates of plastic waste in (thousands) numbers of pieces of plastic waste per square kilometer of sea. The Pacific Ocean gyres are held to be the worst at the moment.

MIDWATER TRAWL -  In midwater trawling a cone-shaped net is towed behind a single boat and spread by trawl doors (image), or it can be towed behind two boats (pair trawling) which act as the spreading device. Midwater trawling is relatively benign compared to the damage bottom trawling can inflict on the sea bottom.

 This website is provided on a free basis as a public information service. copyright © Cleaner Oceans Foundation Ltd (COFL) (Company No: 4674774) December 2023. Solar Studios, BN271RF, United Kingdom. COFL is a charity without share capital.