Most divers I'm sure have encountered items like fishing lines or even (parts of) nets under water. These items cause waht is known as Ghost Fishing, meaning that that fishing gear wil continue to hoop, trap en eventually kill aquatic life.
Among the animals that get in trouble are all sorts of fish, turtles, mammals like seals, sea lions, sea otters, dolphins, whales but also birds. These animals die because the fishing gear was lost or discarded. The Ghost Fishing foundation strives to motivate teams to organize cleanup activities while also organizing projects to do cleanups.
At the moment we have teams all over the world working on projects of various sizes. In LA the Los Angeles Underwater Explorers are close to finishing the cleanup or the wreck of the Infidel, in Croatia the MS Argo was cleaned up by a team of European divers including Dutch, Italian, Croatian, British and Polish divers. In Wellington, New Zealand a team is working on their local divesite, Belgium recently formed their own team Ecoduikers focussing on the Belgian part of the North Sea.
The first contacts have been made to get a project started in the Boston area on the US East Coast.
All these activities require a lot of support either physically of financially. Clearing up nets involves team work, using knives in bad visibility, and hard work so most participating divers are well trained, most of them technical wreck (full trimix) or (full) cave trained.
For more information on our work including photos and videos, please visit
www.ghostfishing.org
www.facebook.com/ghostfishing (don't forget to like if you do )
Donations are necessary and appreciated
Among the animals that get in trouble are all sorts of fish, turtles, mammals like seals, sea lions, sea otters, dolphins, whales but also birds. These animals die because the fishing gear was lost or discarded. The Ghost Fishing foundation strives to motivate teams to organize cleanup activities while also organizing projects to do cleanups.
At the moment we have teams all over the world working on projects of various sizes. In LA the Los Angeles Underwater Explorers are close to finishing the cleanup or the wreck of the Infidel, in Croatia the MS Argo was cleaned up by a team of European divers including Dutch, Italian, Croatian, British and Polish divers. In Wellington, New Zealand a team is working on their local divesite, Belgium recently formed their own team Ecoduikers focussing on the Belgian part of the North Sea.
The first contacts have been made to get a project started in the Boston area on the US East Coast.
All these activities require a lot of support either physically of financially. Clearing up nets involves team work, using knives in bad visibility, and hard work so most participating divers are well trained, most of them technical wreck (full trimix) or (full) cave trained.
For more information on our work including photos and videos, please visit
www.ghostfishing.org
www.facebook.com/ghostfishing (don't forget to like if you do )
Donations are necessary and appreciated
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