Divers Removing Old Fishing Nets

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

at least a little of the $$$ went to something other than auto industry, wall street, and banks, maybe we could get a little stimulus money and wrap lawyers and politicians in the nets, sink 'em and create a self sustaining, organic reef/ fish feeder would solve our biggestg problem and reinvigorate fish at the same time
 
Hope that stimulus money reaches groups like Kurt Lieber's Ocean Defenders Alliance. We're still trying to remove the rest of the net from the wreck of the squid boat Infidel which sank due to the captain's greed to pull in one more haul apparently with the load in his boat unbaffled causing the vessel to list and sink.
 
Umm.... wasnt it commercial fishermen that caused the nets to be there in the first place, and the "ghost" traps you find at times. they should regulate commercial net sales and fine people that arnt either rigging a new boat or replacing damaged nets (most of the net needing turned in upon purchase or face a fine) Its great that they are trying to clean up the ocean but to kinda reward people that may have been careless about the nets and added to the waste in the first place I find kinda reduculous
 
I agree that commercial fishing vessels should be held accountable for "ghost" nets. The owner or the insurance company should have been required to pay for the removal of the net from thew Infidel in our waters. Why should we divers have to expend so much effort to clean up after them?

There have been proposals to have nets sold with identification labels so that when they are discovered abandoned, they can be traced back to the owner.
 
Most of these nets have been down for decades ... they don't disintegrate quickly at all, and they continue to trap and kill continuously. Many of the dive sites I frequent are covered in these things, and they're not just a hazard to divers, but to the schools of fish and birds (yes ... birds) that frequent these sites.

There's been a volunteer effort going on for years to identify and remove ghost nets in Puget Sound ... but the sheer volume of nets is daunting.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)
 
SOme times they are from other Nations. A few years ago we were watching a video of the Doria off of Nantucket with a guy named Ivar Babb at the National Underwater Research Center (NURC) at UCONN, he took one look at a net shown in the video and said it was Russian.
 
I must be the same stimulus pot of money paying some watermen in the lower Chesapeake to recover old crab pots.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

Back
Top Bottom