Tangled Seas works with ghost gear and marine debris using a cross stakeholder collaborative and inclusive approach.
Ghost net is a discarded fishing net from a commercial fishing boat that has been lost or abandoned.
Every year they are responsible for trapping and killing millions of marine animals including sharks, rays, bony fish, turtles, dolphins, whales, crustaceans, and birds. Ghost nets drift with ocean currents for years or even decades. As they travel huge distances, they continue to catch and kill marine animals in a process called “ghost fishing”.
Entanglement in ghost nets can lead to exhaustion, suffocation, starvation, amputations of limbs, and, eventually, the death of a marine animal. Entangled fish often act as bait, attracting larger predators such as turtles, sharks, and dolphins, which may themselves become entangled.