According to a study done by UC Santa Barbara, the only surefire way to save endangered marine species is not linked to climate change or pollution - it's overfishing. The main reason that endangered marine species are endangered is because they are victims of bycatch - being caught up in the indiscriminate nets of large-scale fisheries. They are not being targeted, but they are being swept up at the same scale but they can't reproduce fast enough to keep up. The indiscriminate nature of fishing with a giant net means that these species can't possibly be protected, so the only way to stop is to stop overfishing in the first place.
I feel like fishing with a giant net is overrated. I mean, now we have fish farms and aquaculture and all those other things where you can basically just have a giant sea ranch. Why do you need to spend all the time, risk, and money to sail out into open ocean with a giant net? Just stay home and breed your own fish right outside that you don't even have to find and catch. It would be like if instead of breeding cattle and keeping them penned up, ranchers let all the cattle be wild and just run around on open wilderness, and then occasionally hunted them down and caught as many as possible with a giant net. There's a reason they don't do that, and it's not about saving the environment, it's about cost efficiency. Why can't we apply that to fishing?
0 Comments
Now I know what you're thinking. Ghost gear! Sounds cool, right? Like the weird guns the Ghostbusters use to zap all those ghosts. Well, I hate to break it to you, but "ghost gear" is a term for abandoned diving or fishing equipment left behind in the ocean that can ensnare or kill marine life. London-based group World Animal Protection estimates that more than 705,000 tons of ghost gear gets abandoned in the ocean a year. 71% of ghost gear animal deaths have to do with fishing nets, which get wrapped around animals and prevent them from being able to swim to get air (marine mammals) or find food (marine non-mammals). One of the worst things about ghost gear is the chain effect it has. "For instance, fish could get intertwined with a net. Then a bird chasing the fish gets caught. Then a pursuing seal gets stuck and even a shark can get ensnared."
Fisherman are great. Fish are delicious. Mark Wahlberg in The Perfect Storm was awesome. But there has to be a better way of going about fishing than saying "Welp, this net has a hole in it. Guess we'll just drop it right here and bounce!" I mean, how hard can it be to drag it back without fish in it and just toss it in a landfill? Or even if the net isn't good for fishing, I'm sure you could still cut it up and reuse the rope. If you think about it, dumping ghost gear into the ocean is actually worse for fishermen. They're just killing the fish they're trying to catch and sell in the first place! The less ghost gear, the more live fish there'll be to fish out of the ocean later. Logic is what makes the world go round, people. |