Under Water Death Traps

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Many people around the world enjoy eating fish, but we do not pay close attention to the practices that are being used to catch those fish. The underwater sea is a pool of mysteries and majesties. To see the bottom sea floor tinted with blood through the carelessness of people is a sore sight to bear.  We are in a technologically advanced and humanely progressed society. Through this point, we still need to do a lot more towards preserving our environment and other living beings that deserve to live their life and it is our responsibility to ensure that as human beings.

Humanity has figured out a breakthrough in fishing: catching fish by using derelict nets. Looking deeper into this, it is clearly noted that we have ignored to collect every net that was deployed to catch our prey and the leftover nets underwater are death traps of thousands of precious marine lives. Every year, thousands of tons of nets are abandoned under waters throughout the world, and thousands of species including marine birds, dolphins, rockfish, marine invertebrates and mammals are being trapped and killed, due to this “breakthrough. These nets continue to trap and turn those lives to skeletons for decades if not removed. These nylon net traps have succeeded in consuming lives every day as they rest at the bottom of the sea. What else could display our irresponsible actions under water?

For the fight to keep litter out of seas, why is directly littering our water not prohibited? Let’s save thousands of marine lives under Puget Sound waters and be responsible for the creations we’ve made as human beings. The human race today is far knowledgeable than it was many centuries ago, but we haven’t put the thought into the process of fishing while we consciously catch what we want to eat and ignore victims of our unnoticeable and irresponsible actions.

We urge you to join SavetheSound2014 team and protect the marine life that are so longingly roaming our precious waters.

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What is Save the Sound 2014?

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Save the Sound 2014 is a grassroots organization whose mission is to increase awareness of the devastating effects that derelict fishing gear causes to the Puget Sound.

Derelict gear comes in many forms.  It may be in a lost shrimp or crab pot or worse yet a gillnet.  Crab and shrimp pots are used by both recreational and commercial fisherman.  Gillnets however are only allowed, by law, to be used by commercial and tribal fishermen.

Since gillnets cause the most damage (in our estimation) we will explain their impact.  Gillnets are constructed of nylon and are deployed in lengths of several hundred yards.  They are weighted at the bottom thus forming a large nylon mesh wall that fish will swim into.  As the fish swims into the net its head protrudes through the hole but it can swim no further.  However the fish is now trapped because the net snares around the gills.  Due to this gillnets are highly effective and provide for easy bounties.  The downside however is that these super efficient nets also capture non-targeted fish species, marine mammals and birds.

However these devices are even more troubling if they are lost by the fisherman.  These nets may become disconnected from their buoys and sink into the water.  But they keep on fishing unattended and are referred to as “ghost nets”.  The fish that trapped in the nets die and attract other species such as crab, seals and birds.  These animals subsequently get stuck in the net as well and typically die.

These nets also catch other species such as porpoises and whales.  These problems are common anywhere in the world that employs gillnets.  Sadly many people are even aware that this problem exists.  But you can help!

Spread the word that this is happening.  In this modern day social media is king.  Share articles, pictures and videos of what is happening our our Puget Sound (and greater World Oceans).  This video produced by The Great Whale Conservancy shows how a whale that was ensnared in a gillnet in Mexico was freed by a group of amazing people:

You can also contribute to great organizations such as the Northwest Straits Initiative.  This organization does amazing work to remove derelict gear from Puget Sound waters.  To date they have removed of over 4,600 nets, 3,700 crab pots and 47 shrimp pots.  Please see their http://www.derelictgear.org/Progress.aspx

In our next post we will examine these topics deeper