What problems do drift nets cause?

What problems do drift nets cause?

Because drift nets are not very selective of species, their use results in a large by-catch of non-target fish, sharks, turtles, seabirds, and marine mammals, which are usually jettisoned, dead, back to the ocean. Drift nets are an extremely destructive fishing technology.

What is disadvantage of drift net fishing?

Drift nets are not selective; there is no way to use them to target a particular species of fish. Drift nets can catch almost everything in their path, and there are few protections for species that were never intended to be caught.

How do gill nets affect the environment?

Lost gillnets can also be highly detrimental. Although less studied, lost gillnets also manifest negative effects by damaging corals and polluting water with plastic. Detrimental effects on corals and plastic pollution produces cascading effects for other species dependent on corals.

Are drift nets still used?

Large mesh drift gillnets are already banned in the U.S. territorial waters of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, as well as off the coasts of Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Hawaii. However, they remain legal in federal waters off the coast of California.

Why was drift nets banned?

They are extremely harmful, as notoriously high numbers of sea animals, including protected species, such as dolphins, sea lions, and seabirds, are caught, killed, and thrown away by the driftnet fishery. Driftnets are condemned by the United Nations and are already banned in many countries and US waters.

Are drift nets banned?

Why is Gillnetting unsustainable?

The use of large drift gillnets as a fishing practice has been proven to be detrimental to a vast array of marine life, indiscriminately capturing seabirds, turtles, sea lions, swordfish, sharks, dolphins, and whales.

Why are ghost nets a problem?

Since hundreds of animals can be caught in a single net, you can see just how monumental this threat is. And ghost nets harm coral reefs too—breaking corals, exposing them to disease, and even blocking the reefs from needed sunlight. Ghost nets are also a major contributor to the ocean plastics crisis.

Are drift nets illegal UK?

Since 2002 their use has been prohibited in EU waters, no matter the size, when used to capture highly migratory species such as tuna and swordfish.

Are driftnets illegal?

In January of 2016, while patrolling the South Indian Ocean, Sea Shepherd’s flagship vessel the Steve Irwin came across a fleet of ships engaged in the illegal practice of fishing with driftnets. Banned since 1992, this style of fishing is notorious for its indiscriminate killing of wildlife.

Who uses drift nets?

Drift nets are widely used to catch pelagic sea fishes. In northern Europe, before the introduction of trawling, drift nets were the most important method of deep-sea fishery. In the old herring fishery of northwestern Europe, drifters commonly set more than 100 nets, each about…