Ghostnets: marine debris is “ghostfishing”
by Emily Rose Nelson, RJD Intern
Annually 640,000 tons of fishing gear is lost, abandoned, or discarded at sea. This deserted fishing gear is known as “ghostnets” and has the potential to “ghostfish” by itself for decades. Ghostnets are a growing issue due to their ability to trap and kill large quantities of commercially valuable fish and threatened species, leading to a loss in food and biodiversity. This waste is of even more concern than other types of marine debris because it is developed specifically to catch marine organisms, often leading to their death.
It is clear there is a lot of trash in the oceans, however little is known about where debris occurs and what organisms it is interacting with. In order to address the problems resulting from ghostnets it is necessary to answer these questions. A team of researchers in Australia set out to understand some of the impacts abandoned fishing gear could have on biodiversity. By combining physical and ecological approaches they were able to predict entanglement risk (expected interactions between nets and turtles) of marine turtles in the Gulf of Carpentaria (GOC) region of Australia.