Have you ever heard of ghosts invading the seas and oceans? Today we want to talk to you about ghost nets, abandoned fishing gear that remains forgotten and continues to capture any marine life that crosses its path.
The danger posed by ghost nets to the sea
Any kind of waste that ends up in the seas and oceans poses a danger to marine wildlife, whether it is toxic waste or plastic. But there is no worse nightmare for the sea's inhabitants than the ghost nets, designed specifically to capture marine wildlife, which are now swimming freely.
Like ghosts in the movies, these nets once had a life, a useful period when they caught fish for fishermen, but their current existence is a sinister shadow of that past. Ghost fishing" occurs when these derelict fishing gear continue to catch and take marine life. They have ceased to catch fish for human consumption, but continue to choke marine wildlife for decades after the end of their useful life.
Fish are not the only ones caught by lost or discarded fishing gear. Turtles, dolphins, whales and all kinds of other animals that move on the surface can be trapped inside ghost nets, exposing them to predators that usually also become trapped when attacking such easy prey.and thus expose themselves to predators that are usually also trapped when attacking such easy prey.
Ghost nets are swept by ocean currents, reaching all corners of salt water. Spreading across the ocean on tides and currents, these lost and discarded fishing gears are now drifting off the shores of the Arctic, reaching remote Pacific islands, entangling coral reefs and destroying the deepest seabed.
What are the effects of ghost nets on humans?
Modern fishing nets are made of nylon or other petroleum-based materials. This means that ghost nets add to the ocean's plastic pollution crisis. Over time and with various erosion factors, the nets degrade into microplastics that make their way into the food chain and sooner or later end up in our food.
How to combat ghost networks?
Their clean-up is costly and complex, however diving collectives or organisations such as "Ghost Diving", "Ghost Diving", "Ghost Diving", "Ghost Diving", "Ghost Diving", etc.Ghost Diving"are in charge of locating abandoned nets on the seabed to remove them so that they can form part of the circular economy, using them to manufacture any type of object you can imagine.
But you know what they say, prevention is better than cure. That's why the focus is also on measures to prevent fishing gear from ending up abandoned in the seas. The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations) in order to motivate prevention, proposes: marking nets so that they can be traced back to their owner, improving warnings about lost gear, or offering economic incentives for their recovery and subsequent recycling.
Did you know that...
According to a study by Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a plastic accumulation area within the subtropical North Pacific was found to contain 42,000 tonnes of megaplastics (over 50 centimetres), 86% of which were derelict fishing nets. They make up an estimated 10 per cent of the plastic waste in our oceans, but account for a much larger proportion of the floating plastic on the surface.