Ghost Fishing - The never ending catch

It’s been quite I while since I’ve posted on here so sorry about that, but things have been mad for me for the last month or so.

Right I’m going to get straight into the topic this week which is something many of you might not have been thinking about, ghost catching. Ghost catching is a process which has been going on for many years all since the development of non-biodegradable nets and happens across our oceans and inland waterways and has a massive ecological effect on the environment.

So starting at the beginning ghost catching is a secondary process of fishing whether it is commercial or recreational fishing. Now as many people will know millions of tonnes of fish are removed from our oceans and waterways every single year with around 4.1 billion people in the world relying on fish as their primary source of protein throughout the world. Just to give you

a few numbers 90 million tonnes of wild fish were removed from oceans in 2012 and this number does not take into account those fish which are farmed such as salmon. It’s important to remember that fisheries do not only have to feed more people, they are also needed to provide more fish per person. The average consumption of fish per person growing from 9kg to 16kg per year from 1960s-1997 and this is a trend which is continuing to grow. The number does not just stop there however as these numbers are only the fish
which are landed in the ports, many more millions of tonnes of fish are also caught and then returned to the sea either dead or dying. This is known as bycatch and can take the form of either over catch for a fishing quota or non-target species which in some cases takes the form of dolphins and turtles.

Bycatch is not what I want to write this post about however as I’ve said before I want to talk about ghost fishing. So finally a description, ghost fishing is fishing which is done via gear such as nets and hooks which have been lost or dumped in the sea or rivers. Unlike human fishing the organisms which this lost gear catch are not used for anything and simply rot.

So the main point to remember is ghost fishing equipment is catching fish 24 hours a day 7 days a week, or nearly. This equipment will fish and trap organisms and these death fish will attract large predators and scavengers which it will also trap. This continues till the nest gets weighed down by the number of bodies and is pull to the ocean floor, and then it stops fishing. However this does not mark the end though, as once the bodies have rotted away the net will rise again and then the whole process starts over. This ghost fishing is an endless cycle and is set to continue for hundreds of year until the nets break up.

This is a terrible thing and it is important to remember to those nets do not just catch fish, sea birds, mammals and crustaceans are affected from this equipment. The process of ghost fishing also takes place in inland waterways and in some cases animals such as swans and otters can be caught up in recreational fishing lines and hooks.

So what can you do about this? Well unless you are a heavily experienced diver I suggest you do not going hunting for nets to remove. There are certain steps open to everyone however which will help the situation for instance, if you are a keen fisherman always attempt to retrieve all your gear is you get it stuck. Also is you visit the coast and see netting on the beach please remove as much as possible and dispose of it responsibly, so they are not washed back out to sea to continue ghost fishing.

Thanks for reading

Check out these links!

This link relates to general farming but make sure you keep an eye on the number of marine creatures at the top!

http://www.adaptt.org/killcounter.html

Just a bit more information about ghost fishing

http://www.fao.org/fishery/topic/14798/en

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