July 25, 2017 • 44 mins
It sounds cool, but ghost fishing is actually a tragic byproduct of modern fishing practices, where abandoned nylon nets can trap and kill sealife for hundreds of years.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, we're going on tour in two thousand and seventeen,
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(00:21):
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Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
(00:46):
Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry your own rolling.
Put three of us together, get us to talking. You
got stuff you should know, and you have afternoon tea.
M I am having some tea right now. I see that. Yeah,
it's um, what's that Tazo stuff with the passion fruit
and you know hibiscus and everything. I think that's the
(01:09):
Todso passion fruit hybiscus ta oh yeah that one is
that buzz marketing yeah, well he buzz market for worse
than t I guess maybe a local heroin dealer who
who's puts fent and all in it without telling you. Yeah,
that about Jimmy on the corner. Right. We should probably
(01:29):
not talk too much about heroin though, Chuck, because I'll
bet you this episode gets played in a decent amount
of like middle schools. Yeah, and I'm glad we got
in a couple of jokes early on, because, um, I
think ghost fishing will rank alongside like the MS Show
and the HIV shows as the least funny things to
talk about. Yeah, it is pretty sad, actually, and I
(01:52):
want to actually find ways for humor. And I was like,
this is really awful and sad. Well, we'll just take
our usual tech where if it if it ears its head,
well we'll jump on it and shake it around and
hold it up for everybody to see. Yeah, I think
that's what we do. I think one of the things
that was most depression depression, uh depressing to me was
(02:13):
the I didn't know about all this and then I'm
like in the mid forties and I'm just learning about this. Well,
you know how we learned about it. You remember first
hearing about this. We got an email from and I
feel like such a heel. We got an email from
a class, like a group um in a class. I
want to say. It was probably a middle school class
(02:35):
who had done a project on ghost fishing, and they said,
you know who would want to do an episode on
this is Josh and Chuck. So they're the ones who
brought this to our attention. And I cannot find the email.
It's gone. So I'm very sorry group from class that
I can no longer identify. But you guys, if you
rode in to tell us to do an episode about
(02:56):
ghost fishing and gave us some sources to start with,
you're the only ones who so we're talking about you.
I think it was Mrs Bailey's oceanography class. That's right
at uh Sherman Hemsley Middle School and round Rock, Texas. Man,
that show, Amen, was all right. I never watched that.
Oh you didn't know? It was pretty good. I mean
(03:17):
it was just basically George Jefferson as a preacher, yeah,
which is great. Yeah, you could watch him do anything,
you know, George Jefferson as a garbage man, George Jefferson
as the president, George Jefferson is rescuing sea turtles for
ghost fishing? Is he still with us? I don't know?
(03:37):
All right, so um, we should This is definitely one
of the ones we should not just start talking about
without defining it. First. Most people don't know what ghost
fishing is. Yeah, And sadly, like you said before we
hit record, Jerry, uh always asked us what we're doing today,
and you said, ghost fishing. What sounds a lot cooler
than it is when I when you sent it over,
(03:59):
I was like, oh, ghost fishing, that sounds really neat,
but it's no, there's nothing neat about it. No, no,
but it does have a cool name. Agreed. Yeah, technically
the definition is called abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gear
a l d f G. And what this is is
(04:19):
professional commercial fishing gear. Uh. And I'm sure there's a
small amount of recreational fishing gear, but that's not the
real issue. But commercial fishing gear that has been left
out to see that then goes on to just kill
and maim sea life for hundreds of years. Yeah, it's
(04:41):
it's awful. Yeah, And it's a real, really big problem.
Like just to give one example, will kind of go
around the world a little bit later, but just in
the northeast Atlantic Um there they found in one fishery.
So if you if you look at a c that
in a higher seas going to have like different fisheries,
(05:02):
different areas where they're like lots of fish. Typically in
just one of those little spots in one sea in
the world, they found something like five thousand nets. But
this is what they estimated, nets totaling about twelve hundred
and fifty kilometers in length that were lost every year,
(05:24):
every year. So I want to put that into scale, right,
I did a little Google mapping. Kilometers will get you
from New York to Chicago. It will be yeah, like
a hundred million. Um. It will get you from Brisbane
to Canberra. I don't know where that second place is there,
(05:47):
so they're both in Australia. And then it will also
get you a little under a round trip between London,
London and Edinburgh. Yeah, so it's a that's a lot
of netting and that's just was lost in that one
fishery every year. Yeah, we might as well just throw
out a few of these because this is gonna be
a lot of staggering stats. Uh. The U N Environmental
(06:10):
Program UNIP and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the
United Nations Nations. And this is a conservative estimate. They
said that six hundred and forty thousand tons a fishing
gear or left in the oceans each year. Yeah. I
did another a little bit of more googling. You're ready, okay?
That that is equal to five hundred and fifty six thousand,
(06:33):
five hundred and twenty one Ford Fiestas just dumped in
the ocean every year by way out Ford Fiesta's just
to sully their name. I don't know, because I mean
four Fista is a well selling car all around the world,
so everybody knows what a Ford Fiesta looks like. I
probably couldn't pick one out on the road, but sure
you could too. You would just know intuitively that that's
(06:57):
a Ford Fiesta. Uh. Here's another example, UM, Washington State
right here in the United States. UM, they did a
little clean up job there recently. And we'll get to
the cleanup efforts because it is happening on a smaller scale,
hopefully increasing. But in this one area they got, uh
they wrangled eight hundred and seventy ghost nets, UM, and
(07:20):
that contained more than thirty two thousand marine animals. Yeah,
and this is just in one part of Washington State.
And and if you say, well, who cares about marine animals, well,
everything that included five hundred birds and mammals. Yeah, and
(07:40):
we're talking like like big big males, like whales. This
affects everything from whales on down to little tiny fish.
These things are just out there floating around. They get
loose um one way or another, and they just float
through the oceans and they can travel very very long
distance is and along the way, animals get trapped at them.
(08:03):
I mean, the whole point of commercial fishing gear is
to trap animals. The problem is is when you when
they're operating correctly, they're reeled in and they bring the
animals with them and then people eat them and you
can have issues with that or whatever, but at least
they're not just completely going to waste, which is the
problem with ghost fishing. These things are like floating little
islands of death that trapped all manner of sea life. Um.
(08:26):
And then they just die one way or another, either
very quickly depending on whether they need to breathe like
their marine mammal and they can't surface or there um.
A sea turtle that um that that can't feed any
longer because it's it's got a net growing around its
mouth because it stuck its head through a loop when
it was a juvenile, Yeah, and said, oh what's in
(08:48):
there that looks neat? Let me stick my face in it.
And now I have a net, and then I grow
bigger in the net stays there, uh and potentially cuts
into my skin and becomes a part of me like
little turn Old mothers tell their turtle babies this, like,
don't put your head through a loops, just like they
human mothers tell their kids. Don't stick your arm out
of a school bus. Yeah, same same thing, I would guess.
(09:11):
Here's another stat The World Animal Protection Group estimates that
getting snared and ghost gear kills about a hundred and
thirty six thousand seal, sea lions and large whales every year.
And and you know some of these animals are already endangered.
Uh so any conservation efforts are being at the very
(09:33):
least blunted by or stunted I guess both by you know,
these other things going on. It's just it's it's a
staggering problem. This um, the plastics that they use, I
mean back in the day, they used to actually not
even that long ago. Nets were made of things that
would biodegrade, like sometimes they were cotton or hemp um.
(09:55):
And now you know, as we quote advance unquote with synthetics,
they have these plastics that these things could be out
there for five or six hundred years. Yeah, and when
they if they do break up, then the animals eat
that stuff and die. Yeah. Do you remember our great
Pacific garbage patch episode from years and years ago. Yeah,
(10:16):
that factors in for sure. Yeah. Well, so a lot
of this stuff goes and and is attracted to that
those huge gyres out there in the ocean. And we
talked about in in that episode about how plastic photo
degrades when it's just out there in the sun. The
motion of ocean currents combined with the sun photo degrading it.
(10:37):
It breaks it down into smaller and smaller bits that
become part of the food chain, which is not good.
You don't want your food chade eating petroleum based plastics.
And that's what commercial fishing gear is made out of,
which again that's why it lasts so long, hundreds of
years um, which is what you want. You want something
very durable in your fishing gear. But when it gets loose,
it's a big problem. And like you said, it's a
(11:00):
early recent problem too, because it wasn't that long ago
like that people were using nets that degraded a lot,
a lot easier. Yeah, I mean it says, uh, it
says in here. I'm not sure where you source this,
but fifty or sixty years ago. So in the history
of fishing, this, this synthetic netting is pretty new. Um.
And this isn't just like and we're gonna talk a
(11:21):
lot about animals, because that's sort of the main problem,
but um, it's an issue to the industry to like
it says right here that here in the US, they've
estimated that uh, one single ghost net that's lost or
discarded or whatever can kill almost twenty dollars worth of
(11:42):
dungeness crab over a ten year span. That's just one net, right,
And then there's like you could buy you could buy
seven that amount of money. I knew you'd get some
comedy in there. Uh. And then there are you know,
the small vessels, uh, small and even larger vessels that
can get tangled the stuff. They're divers that can't navigate
(12:03):
through the stuff, so there is a bit of a
human impact as well. Um. I think we should take
a break though, because I'm getting hot under the collar, Okay,
and we'll come back and talk about more of this
stuff right after this. Alright, chuck. So we've we've kind
(12:37):
of given a good overview. But let's get into just
how fishing gear could kill marine animals. And there's there's
a number of different ways and it kind of depends
on the animal. So to start off with, um, we
mentioned how a seat turtle might be like, oh, what's
what's on the other side of this loop? Danger? Right? Um?
(12:59):
Young seal pups might be doing the same thing. There's
a very famous picture of a turtle with a six
pack ring. Yeah, man, and its shell is normal size
on either side of the six pack ring. But then
it looks like it's one of those waste trainers people
who have have worn a corset for ten years. It's
basically the same thing that nylon. That's exactly what this
(13:22):
commercial fishing gear is made out of. It's made out
of plastic nylon or nilon plastic, and um, it holds
fast and when it when a turtle gets stuck in
it or gets it stuck around them when they're young,
as they grow it. Basically they have to grow around
this thing. And it's not good. It's not good for
your physiology, it's not good for locomotion. You're going to
(13:44):
be a stunted little turtle when you grow up like that. Yeah,
they I think you mentioned obviously marine mammals that need
to surface. Um, they could die within minutes just because
they're simply trapped. They can be affixiated through like immediately
like that, or through you know, over the course of
(14:06):
months and years die slow, awful, more awful deaths. Uh.
They can prevent them from feeding, like like you said,
if something gets wrapped around their mouth and they literally
just can't open their mouth, they will starve to death
or locomotion can be affected too, right, So if you
are a slow turtle, yeah, you're gonna have trouble going
after food. Um, and you may starve to death like
(14:30):
that as well. Yeah, or you know, swimming circles for
the rest of your life because like one side of
your body is entangled, right. Um, so you said there
there you can kind of break down the manner of
death into acute or chronic One of the sad chronic
ones that got me was from towing. Right. Yeah, So
(14:50):
let's say you're a whale, your decent size mammal, thank you,
you're swimming, you're swimming along, and you get a net
stuck on you, like hell fast, You're stuck. You could
still conceivably swim along for a while, for a very
long while, but now you have basically what amounts to
an extra appendage, a ghost net dragging from you. That's
(15:12):
bad enough as it is, because these nets are enormous.
Like I was reading about tuna nets. Some tuna fishers
use these nets that fall like seven hundred feet deep
and are a mile wide. So you get a segment
of that, even just a segment of what are those
nets on you? It's going to drag you down, make
it harder for you to just move normally. But then
(15:34):
on top of that, that net is probably going to
catch other animals over time, So not only are you
dragging this net, you're also dragging all the animals who
have been caught in that same net, and um have
probably died. And then eventually you're just going to not
be able to keep up any longer, and you you do,
you drown. Yeah, like I can't imagine a lot of
(15:56):
things more just shameful for for humans than seeing a
blue whale dragging a hundred foot net full of dead
sea animals behind it until it dies. It's pretty bad.
Like I couldn't even have conceived of something that awful
(16:17):
until I've learned about the stuff. It's last word is
why serious? Um? I know this is not a it's
not a happy episode. It's not. It's and the other
problem is it's I think this is one reason a
lot of people haven't heard of this too. It's like,
(16:38):
how many more problems can we have to deal with?
It's just add one more to the pile, and it
makes it really hard not to just get like like
catastrophe fatigued. You know, but you just you can't. You can't.
You can't do that. You can't let it happen. You
gotta go take a break, shake it off, and come
back at it with with vigor, or you need to
(17:00):
say this one, this one means something to me so
much so that I'm actually going to do something about this.
I'm not just gonna like click my tongue and shake
my head and keep scrolling through my Twitter feed. I'm
gonna do something about this. No matter whether it's dealing
with ghost fishing or dealing with climate change or whatever
(17:20):
strikes you in that way, go after it. And that's
that's probably the best thing you can do that rather
than trying to take on everything at once. I totally agree, man.
And I also uh poo poo the idea that like, well,
you can't say this is bad when you still do this. Yeah,
though it can all be bad. Yeah, And like you
(17:43):
can't not everyone can tackle everything. So if you want
to be an advocate for for dogs on the street
and go do that, um, because the obvious thing would
be for people say well, don't eat fish, don't support
the industry, right, and like how can you eat How
can you be a dog advocate and still eat fish?
Are you going on? You're worse than Hitler? But I say, like,
(18:07):
find whatever is meaningful to you and try and affect
change there as best you can. Yeah, but you know,
and then you can say I spent every weekend for
the last year cleaning up ghost fishing nets and saving
seal pups. What did you do, judge? Uh, so, how
does this happen? I think that's an enough Like we've
(18:30):
hit people over the head pretty hard with this stuff.
Are you sure? I think, I mean, there'll be some
more stats in here, but I think they get the point. Um,
how does this stuff happen? Uh? And I'm and I'm
asking us both And I'll go ahead and say one
thing is sometimes it's accidental. Sometimes there's bad weather, um,
and you you have to abandon your gear. Yeah. There
(18:52):
was a two thousand nine UM United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organization report that found that most ghost fishing gear
is not intentionally discarded, that most of it is accidentally lost, right,
which is good that that makes you feel a little better.
And it's not just fisherman don't like who ca yeah
(19:14):
see you in hell see, but that that also does happen.
It does sadly, it's nice to know that that's not
the bulk of it, right, So that when it's unintentional,
when it's accidental or something like that. In active nature,
a lot of times it's just um, severe weather, like
a big storm comes up and just breaks your lines
(19:34):
and all of a sudden all of your nets are lost.
And believe me, if you're a commercial fisherman, that is
about the worst thing that can happen to you short
of sinking while you're out, you know, especially if your
net was already full and you're reeling it in and
you lost it because of nature. Um, that's that's that's
bad for everybody. Another thing that can happen is and
(19:56):
this is one of the bad ones. You could be
have elite a gear, or be fishing illegally, maybe using
a method you shouldn't or in a place you shouldn't be,
and you, uh, there's what's called enforcement pressure, and you
abandon your gear because you don't want to get in trouble. Yeah,
there basically just kind of whistle like I wasn't doing anything. Um.
(20:19):
There's also what they call spatial pressure, where if you
have some nets floating along and another boat comes into
the area, doesn't see it, and runs over them, basically
cut some loose from their moorings. Then that has just
become ghost fishing gear itself. Yeah. The economic pressure I
(20:41):
don't fully get this. What I would imagine that could
mean is, you know, it would cost us more to
go out and retrieve these things than to just go
back to port and get these guys off the clock.
That's part of it. That is definitely part of it,
I think, like if you're I think more often than not,
(21:01):
is if your gear is all torn up or whatever,
and if you take it back to port and you're
charged a fee for dumping it because it's considered waste,
Like I think that's that's how it's treated in the Netherlands.
It makes more sense for you just litter if you're
gonna have to pay to have it disposed of properly,
(21:22):
the well the sea can take it. I'll just cut
it loose and look the other way and go back
home and say, what fishing gear. I don't have anything
to throw away. So that's economic pressure. And to me,
we'll talk about later. That is the key dissolving ghosts
fishing if you ask me, Yeah, and real quickly, like
I don't think we said for sure, it's not always
(21:43):
just nets um like crab pots and traps and nets
for sure, fishing line, hooks, rope. And the one that
really chase me is packing bands. So these bands around
bait boxes and stuff, those are clearly just dumped. Oh yeah,
they just tossed it over the side. Yeah, And that's
(22:04):
actually in violation of a United Nations UM convention from
y three that basically was looking to stop pollution from
ships and um, you're not supposed to throw anything over
the side, from those packing bands to cooking oil that
you fried your French fries in. Like, nothing is supposed
(22:24):
to go over the side except possibly fishing trails from
cleaning fish. It's called the Don't be a Huge Jerk Convention. Yeah,
of ninety that was a heck of a convention. Uh
so some of the indirect it was, wasn't it. It's
basically like a Max Funcan convention. I remember that and
Fred Rogers that was the keynote speaker. It's pretty great. Uh.
(22:48):
Some of the indirect causes and we'll see here in
a bit. One of the biggest, biggest problems is, like
you said, when you come back in with maybe unwanted
fishing gear and there's a where to dispose of it. Um,
just simply a lack of these facilities at port uh
is a big, big problem. Yeah, And that could is
(23:08):
that what you said could fix at all, no putting making,
changing it from being an economic burden economic incentive to
bring in your old fishing gear. I think that will
change it. But that's what you just said is a
huge part of that you need to have places for
people that either take it and get money in exchange
(23:29):
for their old stuff, or at the very least just
throw it in a bin somewhere and not get charged
for it. Yeah, exactly, because you know, if you if
you know that you can just throw it away right
when you get to shore, it's only going to take
up that space on your way back in. Um, there's
a pretty good chance that you're not going to litter
(23:50):
a mile wide net, you know, especially and especially if
you can get money for it. Yeah. And another one
of the big problems here, uh, in this one article
you sent was it's I think you know these these
commercial fishermen are I used to watch Deadliest Catch. I
know how these guys are. Uh. They're notoriously stubborn about
(24:12):
new uh technologies, or ironically, it wouldn't be a new
technology if they tried to go back to biodegradable nets.
But just convincing these uh these men and women too
add extra expense or add an extra trip to buy
something that will help the the environment. It's a hard sell,
(24:32):
even though, like dudes, you're costing yourself crab money, because
like twenty grand one lost net can cost twenty dollars
with a crab over ten years. I think they live
more in the trip to trip mindset. Yeah, but I
think that their industry as a whole thinks of it
as like the over ten year kind of thing. And
(24:54):
so from what I understand, the industry is kind of
woken up to this a little more are and it's
starting to take measures a little bit. And we'll talk
about that. But um, yeah, it's it's entirely possible that
individual fishermen are just kind of like this is not
worth it. Yeah. This one quote in here really kind
of drives at home. And I've never heard of the
phrase tragedy of the commons, um, but I like it.
(25:15):
It says, as as with so many tragedy of the
common scenarios, the responsibility to actialize with everyone and the
incentive with no one, and that kind of drives at home.
There's no like, you know, a lot of times are
international waters there. I know, when they have made inroads
with some of these big commercial companies, they're a little
hesitant to get too involved because all of a sudden,
(25:38):
there name is printed in an article. Even if they're
trying to do the right thing, just being associated with
this stuff. They don't even want, you know, even if
they're trying to help out a little bit. Yeah, because
again it's just one more problem. More morris, you know. Yeah,
Like if a company stood up and said so and
so company is is making an effort to, uh, now
(25:58):
do this, then the flip side is like, well, what
have you been doing? That's true? Why did it take
this long? Yeah, that's definitely true. And so companies a
little reticent to even get involved, you know. Yeah, but
I think um, as of two thousand and fifteen, there
is a kind of a new initiative that started that's
that's bringing more people into the fold and making it
(26:20):
safe to join up. I remember what it was a
man that was a McDonald's something I can't remember now, pizza.
It was some new sandwich or something that said it's
like now made with like real chicken or something like that.
And that was like you put that on a sign
because everyone that saw that was like, what was I
(26:43):
eating for the past thirty years? No, with ingredients that
may not kill you. Um, let's take another break and
then we'll come back. We'll we'll take a quick trip
around the world and then we'll talk about what some
people are doing to combat ghost fish. Yeah, litt bit
of good news. Okay, alright, chuck, we're back and we're
(27:27):
in the home stretch. We're gonna solve this problem. But first,
let's go shame different parts of the world. Yes, let's uh,
how about we step onto my little dinghy and um
take a trip around the world. Okay, we'll take us
a while because my little dingy is slow, but we'll
get there eventually. Let's head to the Northeast Atlantic. Yeah,
(27:50):
we're we already talked about the thousand nets that are
tossed in there every year. All right, we've already been there,
and so I just wasted our three months getting there. Apologies.
All right, so we're stuck in the Northeast Atlantic. I apologize.
It's now going to take us six months to navigate,
uh through the midwest of the United States, through Nebraska
(28:12):
and Kansas in our boat. Maybe we should wear portaging
that's along boardage all the way to the northeast Pacific. Yeah,
in Washington State, Well that would be northwest, well, northeast
Pacific Ocean. I guess northwest US, but yeah, northeast Pacific.
So Washington State has oh, man, we already talked about this.
(28:35):
To remember, out of eight hundred and seventy gill nets
they rescued or they found, thirty, man, we we already
made it here. I hate backtracking, all right, carry you back, um,
all right, let's go to the northwest Atlantic, all right,
and we surely we haven't been there. I don't believe
we have the Gulf of St. Lawrence, for God's sake,
(28:57):
No we haven't. Okay, snow crab, this is one snow
crab fishery. Um, they lose about eight hundred traps a
year in this one fishery. And uh, some say that
each fisher like each boat may lose up to in
a year of their traps. And this is an old like,
(29:19):
this isn't an old fish tale. That's the National Oceanic
and Atmosphere Administration's just speak Bay Office saying an old
fish tale. Yeah, this isn't Finding Dory. I never saw
that one, but I did like, Um, what was it? Nemo?
I think, right, I haven't seen either one of them.
Oh you haven't seen Finding Nemo. No, we'll save it,
(29:43):
save it. Well, Emily doesn't like any of those movies ever,
So yeah, because every one of them has some sort
of sad death like she got after Bamby when she
was a kid. She's like, I'm done. Yeah this one,
this one has that too. Yeah, most of them do.
And I said, that's a significant reason it's a good movie.
Well that's why. I mean, that's the theory is that
(30:05):
that's why they do that, is to kind of teach
kids about death. Sure, because I mean it's so sanitized
and like kept out of sight in our society. That's
a good service, all right, finding Nemos on the list,
then yeah, you'll like it. You won't regret seeing where
should uh? Southwest Southeast Asia? Um, well, the Arabian Sea.
(30:26):
Let's make a little stop over there. They actually they're
all woke over there. They figured out that they're people
were losing back in two thousand two about two hundred
and sixty thousand traps per year. Yeah, which is a
problem not just for like say the lobster or crab
or shrimp that they're intended for. They, um, they there's
(30:47):
a lot of by catch that, say, like a lobster
trap can catch as well, like fish can make their
way in there too. So you've got two hundred sixty
thousand traps just floating around, no longer providing any seafood
for anybody. They're just death traps, literal death traps. That's
a problem. And so the United Arab Emirates UM ruled
(31:09):
that you had to put a biodegradable like face or
panel on the traps from from that point, not from
two to one. So eventually they were just open. Yeah,
eventually that one, that one fish that came in last
would be freed, while the other ones are like UH,
(31:29):
in the Caribbean Gulf of Mexico, this pretty staggering around
UH Guadalupe. UH, they lose about half of their traps
every year during hurricane season yea, which is about twenty traps. Yeah,
half man, that's crazy. And then in UH Louisiana alone,
they think that they lose four to ten million blue
(31:54):
crabs lost to their traps. Just in Louisiana, four to
ten million blue crabs lost. All right, So this has
all been super depressing. UM. What can be done about it?
People are are trying to take action. There was an
UH an initiative in London founded by the World Animal
(32:17):
Protection It's an ng O UH and the Global Ghost
Gear Initiative it's pretty cool name. Uh. And here's the deal. Like, Sadly,
when you're first getting efforts like this going, a lot
of this stuff that they're doing is like simply gathering
data because it's hard to get support because people say, well,
(32:40):
what's the data, what's it looking like? And if you say, well,
we don't really have great data yet, then they're kind
of grounded. So yeah, so the very first steps, um
is evidence building and reviewing policies and kind of not
rubber meets the road kind of things. But unfortunately those
have to be the first steps, right. But are they're
(33:00):
starting to gather data from some of the rubber meets
the road stuff. Um. So like if we can go
back over to the Pacific northwest right to the northeast Atlantic. Um.
I think there's like a little pilot program in Washington State,
uh to like clean up ghost fishing stuff and and
(33:24):
from I think two thousand ten, um, oh, no, two
thousand and seven they were they recovered four eighty one
lost gill nets. Right, so this kind of stuff where
you've got people, I think they they had like a
few million dollars from the government and just started a program. Um,
when you've got people doing these things, and then you
(33:45):
have a central organization like the Global Ghost Gear Initiative,
then the gears start moving, the wheels start moving, like
things start happening, because then you start to generate the data,
and then you can start to make the press releases.
Then you can start to like get the the public
aware of this kind of thing, and then you get
pressure on industry and then industry shapes up. Yeah. Here's
(34:06):
one of my favorite things too, and this is not
just for this industry and this problem, but one of
my favorite favorite things in the world is when someone
comes along and says, hey, I'll take that waste product
you have because I can use it. That's what I'm
saying is going to be the key. Yeah, for sure.
And this is already happening a little bit because like
a lot of things, you can generate power through some
(34:28):
of this stuff. So that's one way that I think
there's a company called networks. It's a like an organ
or it's like there's a few companies that came together
to to make networks. I think, well, in their case,
I don't think they're turning into energy, but they're turning, uh,
fishing nets into carpet tiles, carpet tiles, boom great. Right,
(34:51):
there is a one called fishing for energy that's like no, uh,
Covanta Energy, right, and then of course Schnitzer Steel the
face of ghost Gear. They they all came together and
started putting UM gear recycling outposts and I think eleven states,
(35:12):
all over the place, all over the coasts of eleven states,
so that when fishermen come in, whether you're just a
little solo person and you've got some monofilament line left over,
or you're a commercial guy, you can just throw your
old gear in here and it gets recycled, right. And
then they take it, and I think Schnitzer Steel UM
takes it and get strips all the metal from it
(35:33):
for recycling, and then what's left goes to Covanta Energy
and they turn it into energy. I looked high and
low to exactly how they do that, and I couldn't
find it. So it makes me a little nervous about
what they're doing to turn this into energy. But they
supposedly have created enough energy from the stuff that they've
um that's been recycled to power like homes for a month.
(35:58):
That's amazing. Yeah, And I mean this is this is
stuff that otherwise would have just gone out stayed out
in the sea and drowned whales and and turtles. You
like skateboarding, Sure, there's a sustainable skateboard retailer name b
u r e oh Bureo and they are turning uh,
(36:20):
fishing nets into skateboards. Like how cool is that? Yeah?
Just pretty cool because they're actually buying fishing net from fishermen.
Like there they use stuff, so they're giving money for
it and then they're turning around and using it to recycle.
It's pretty cool. And then there's there's a lot of
stuff you could do if you if you don't have
(36:40):
a skateboard company or you're not an energy company. Um.
There's a group called ghost Fishing and they Um, I
think that's what they're called, right, ghost fishing. I'm not
it's just goes. I think it's just goes fishing anyway. Um.
They yeah, they're they're group of divers. They were wreck
(37:02):
divers in the North Sea. I think they're originally based
maybe in the Netherlands. Um, and they noticed on these
wrecks that like there was tons of like ghost gear.
Apparently it's a big problem with shipwrecks, so that's why
it's kind of dangerous for humans, and then also gets
caught up on coral and stuff too, so they started
cleaning up. They took it upon themselves and start cleaning
(37:23):
up some of these wrecks. And then little by little,
this little group of like friends that were you know,
wreck divers that started cleaning it up, started making connections
with other groups of divers all around the world. And
now all of a sudden, the Ghost Fishing I think
Ghost Fishing Alliance or Initiative is um. This this multinational
(37:45):
network of people who love scuba diving and who spend
some of their scuba diving time cleaning up ghost nets.
And there's actually pictures of these people like freeing seal
pups from ghost fishing nets. You know, it's pretty cool.
Like if you're into scuba diving, there's something you can
do right there. Yeah, imagine there are not many better
(38:05):
sleeps at night you can get than having spent your
day free and seal pups. You probably sleep pretty well. Uh.
In Australia, we can't leave you out. There are a
couple of cool things going on there. Um. There's a
program called or a group called ghost nets Australia and
they've been partnering with indigenous groups to basically help cleaning
(38:27):
up you know, this stuff in individual areas. Uh. And
then there's another fishery, Like we kind of have been
picking on the fisheries and some of these companies, but um,
some are getting on board. There's one in Australia called
the Northern Prawn Fishery, So definitely give them your support
if you live there. Uh. They're working with the World
Animal Protection Group two. UH. They report sightings, they report
(38:51):
ghost gear locations basically like here's where it is at
least and sometimes they're even involved in retrieving some of
this stuff and setting some of these animals free they
come across it. Yeah, I think that's like, that's part
of it. You know, there's there's you gotta have the
government involved to set up you know, recycling stations or whatever,
to fund pilot programs to get the data going. But
(39:13):
and then with industry, you have to educate industry, you
have to give them financial incentives to keep their nets
bringing to bring them back ashore. And then because they're
also the ones who are out there in the sea
to too to make it so that it's a it's
it's they have incentive to stop in and take in
(39:33):
ghost gear when they see it. And part of that
is like what just happened for North pron Fishery. They
just got free advertisement for being the good guys because
they got involved. So good, I think we just solved
the problem. I'll give you another shout out to There's
a brewery from del Rey, Florida, Delray Beach, Florida called
(39:54):
Saltwater Brewery, and they made some news recently because they
debuted a six pack ring that is made um to
bio degrade and it's also edible, So rather than growing
around a turtle or keeping a turtle from growing correctly,
a turtle can actually eat the six pack ring when
(40:14):
it encounters it, if it makes it into the the wall. Yeah, well,
a lot of the crapperies don't even use the rings anymore.
They have the recycled plastic kind of lead things. You know,
good at job, you have me at brewery. Uh. If
you want to know more about ghost fishing or ghost gear,
you can type those words into your favorite search bar,
(40:37):
uh and it will bring up some pretty good stuff.
And since I said stuff, it's time for listener mail.
I'm gonna call this one a T shirt ideas and
an email from a dude that has kind of kept
up with our T shirt names and he wants us
to pick h all three of us to each pick
(40:57):
our favorite. Okay, that would be Jerry, Jerry, you just
knock like a horse on the ground when I get
to a T shirt you like, Hey, guys, love your
show and your tangents are hilarious, But it really cracks
me up are all the funny band names and T
shirt ideas you come up with. I collected a few
of my favorites over the years, and the time has come.
(41:17):
I mean to turn a few of these T shirt
dreams into realities, going to design and print a few
T shirts. But my problem is I can't decide which
phrases to use. So if you could each pick one,
it would really make my day. And there are twelve,
so starting with number one, trusses rock exclamation point, friends,
don't let friends at your candle. That's actually Emily has
(41:40):
that shirt. So that's the thing. Okay, I think some
one might have sent us send that in actually, ok yeah,
because that's happened from time to time, Like we got
um Mike's on pants off t shirt. Yeah. Uh number three,
if you have a beacon, a probe, and a shovel,
you could be Okay. I don't even know if that
one run well. He tied them to the episodes, but um,
(42:03):
for brevity, I'm just gonna read these. Mystery is weird.
I like that one. Not too bad to each their own.
It seems a little snotty these days to have that
like on a shirt. Yeah yeah whatever, Uh Master of
Jamment that maybe mine is that? I think so so far.
(42:26):
Mine is Mystery is weird. I listened to the Tick episode.
I do remember that that's for everybody. This one's pretty good.
Find your own butter. Jerry just knocked on the floor. Okay,
there's Cherry I Viking boy. That's an old one, natural selection, Colin,
it just makes sense. Yeah, that's a good one, a
(42:48):
little preachy. Um, don't scrutinize me. It's aggressive and finally,
less wash our hands as often as possible. M That
mine is Mine's definitely mystery is weird? Okay, I'm gonna
go with Master of Enjama and Jerry definitely likes find
your own butter. Okay. In fact, I think Jerry said
(43:09):
that to me in this office. Who was that uh
that wrote that in? That is from Steve Rickart in
Grand Rapids, Michigan. Steve, and he said, if you send
me your shirt sizes, I'll be sure to make an
extra of each. So I'm an excel m you're probably
a what large? Yeah? Man, I'm right on the border
(43:30):
between like large being a little drapey and medium, like
really showing off way too much. Tum. There's something in
between medium and large. I guess large, Jerry, what are you?
Jerry's a medium? Did she stamp that out? She did? Medium? Unisex,
she said, uh. And then finally he closes with pps
(43:51):
in a place in time where people with big platforms
often use your voices to create division. So refreshing to
listen to your show. I admire respect you show to
all people and the ever you put into being inclusive
and empathetic. Thank you, Steve. Yeah, thanks a lot, Steve.
But hey, find your own butter. All right, everyone turn
on Steve. Uh. If you want to be like Steve
(44:14):
and just come up with a great email, well you
can start by tweeting to us. If you don't like
the email, I'm at Josh, Underscore, Um Underscore Clark. We're
also at s Y s K Podcast. You can join
us on Facebook at Charles W. Chuck Bryant or slash
stuff you Should Know Either one of those two. You
can send us all an email. The Stuff Podcast the
(44:35):
House Touff works dot com and has always joined us
at our home on the web. Stuff you Should Know
dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Is it how Stuff Works dot com
Hey, everybody, we're going on tour in two thousand and seventeen,
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(00:21):
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and everybody else, go to s y sk live dot
com and buy your tickets now because they're going fast.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
(00:46):
Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry your own rolling.
Put three of us together, get us to talking. You
got stuff you should know, and you have afternoon tea.
M I am having some tea right now. I see that. Yeah,
it's um, what's that Tazo stuff with the passion fruit
and you know hibiscus and everything. I think that's the
(01:09):
Todso passion fruit hybiscus ta oh yeah that one is
that buzz marketing yeah, well he buzz market for worse
than t I guess maybe a local heroin dealer who
who's puts fent and all in it without telling you. Yeah,
that about Jimmy on the corner. Right. We should probably
(01:29):
not talk too much about heroin though, Chuck, because I'll
bet you this episode gets played in a decent amount
of like middle schools. Yeah, and I'm glad we got
in a couple of jokes early on, because, um, I
think ghost fishing will rank alongside like the MS Show
and the HIV shows as the least funny things to
talk about. Yeah, it is pretty sad, actually, and I
(01:52):
want to actually find ways for humor. And I was like,
this is really awful and sad. Well, we'll just take
our usual tech where if it if it ears its head,
well we'll jump on it and shake it around and
hold it up for everybody to see. Yeah, I think
that's what we do. I think one of the things
that was most depression depression, uh depressing to me was
(02:13):
the I didn't know about all this and then I'm
like in the mid forties and I'm just learning about this. Well,
you know how we learned about it. You remember first
hearing about this. We got an email from and I
feel like such a heel. We got an email from
a class, like a group um in a class. I
want to say. It was probably a middle school class
(02:35):
who had done a project on ghost fishing, and they said,
you know who would want to do an episode on
this is Josh and Chuck. So they're the ones who
brought this to our attention. And I cannot find the email.
It's gone. So I'm very sorry group from class that
I can no longer identify. But you guys, if you
rode in to tell us to do an episode about
(02:56):
ghost fishing and gave us some sources to start with,
you're the only ones who so we're talking about you.
I think it was Mrs Bailey's oceanography class. That's right
at uh Sherman Hemsley Middle School and round Rock, Texas. Man,
that show, Amen, was all right. I never watched that.
Oh you didn't know? It was pretty good. I mean
(03:17):
it was just basically George Jefferson as a preacher, yeah,
which is great. Yeah, you could watch him do anything,
you know, George Jefferson as a garbage man, George Jefferson
as the president, George Jefferson is rescuing sea turtles for
ghost fishing? Is he still with us? I don't know?
(03:37):
All right, so um, we should This is definitely one
of the ones we should not just start talking about
without defining it. First. Most people don't know what ghost
fishing is. Yeah, And sadly, like you said before we
hit record, Jerry, uh always asked us what we're doing today,
and you said, ghost fishing. What sounds a lot cooler
than it is when I when you sent it over,
(03:59):
I was like, oh, ghost fishing, that sounds really neat,
but it's no, there's nothing neat about it. No, no,
but it does have a cool name. Agreed. Yeah, technically
the definition is called abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gear
a l d f G. And what this is is
(04:19):
professional commercial fishing gear. Uh. And I'm sure there's a
small amount of recreational fishing gear, but that's not the
real issue. But commercial fishing gear that has been left
out to see that then goes on to just kill
and maim sea life for hundreds of years. Yeah, it's
(04:41):
it's awful. Yeah, And it's a real, really big problem.
Like just to give one example, will kind of go
around the world a little bit later, but just in
the northeast Atlantic Um there they found in one fishery.
So if you if you look at a c that
in a higher seas going to have like different fisheries,
(05:02):
different areas where they're like lots of fish. Typically in
just one of those little spots in one sea in
the world, they found something like five thousand nets. But
this is what they estimated, nets totaling about twelve hundred
and fifty kilometers in length that were lost every year,
(05:24):
every year. So I want to put that into scale, right,
I did a little Google mapping. Kilometers will get you
from New York to Chicago. It will be yeah, like
a hundred million. Um. It will get you from Brisbane
to Canberra. I don't know where that second place is there,
(05:47):
so they're both in Australia. And then it will also
get you a little under a round trip between London,
London and Edinburgh. Yeah, so it's a that's a lot
of netting and that's just was lost in that one
fishery every year. Yeah, we might as well just throw
out a few of these because this is gonna be
a lot of staggering stats. Uh. The U N Environmental
(06:10):
Program UNIP and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the
United Nations Nations. And this is a conservative estimate. They
said that six hundred and forty thousand tons a fishing
gear or left in the oceans each year. Yeah. I
did another a little bit of more googling. You're ready, okay?
That that is equal to five hundred and fifty six thousand,
(06:33):
five hundred and twenty one Ford Fiestas just dumped in
the ocean every year by way out Ford Fiesta's just
to sully their name. I don't know, because I mean
four Fista is a well selling car all around the world,
so everybody knows what a Ford Fiesta looks like. I
probably couldn't pick one out on the road, but sure
you could too. You would just know intuitively that that's
(06:57):
a Ford Fiesta. Uh. Here's another example, UM, Washington State
right here in the United States. UM, they did a
little clean up job there recently. And we'll get to
the cleanup efforts because it is happening on a smaller scale,
hopefully increasing. But in this one area they got, uh
they wrangled eight hundred and seventy ghost nets, UM, and
(07:20):
that contained more than thirty two thousand marine animals. Yeah,
and this is just in one part of Washington State.
And and if you say, well, who cares about marine animals, well,
everything that included five hundred birds and mammals. Yeah, and
(07:40):
we're talking like like big big males, like whales. This
affects everything from whales on down to little tiny fish.
These things are just out there floating around. They get
loose um one way or another, and they just float
through the oceans and they can travel very very long
distance is and along the way, animals get trapped at them.
(08:03):
I mean, the whole point of commercial fishing gear is
to trap animals. The problem is is when you when
they're operating correctly, they're reeled in and they bring the
animals with them and then people eat them and you
can have issues with that or whatever, but at least
they're not just completely going to waste, which is the
problem with ghost fishing. These things are like floating little
islands of death that trapped all manner of sea life. Um.
(08:26):
And then they just die one way or another, either
very quickly depending on whether they need to breathe like
their marine mammal and they can't surface or there um.
A sea turtle that um that that can't feed any
longer because it's it's got a net growing around its
mouth because it stuck its head through a loop when
it was a juvenile, Yeah, and said, oh what's in
(08:48):
there that looks neat? Let me stick my face in it.
And now I have a net, and then I grow
bigger in the net stays there, uh and potentially cuts
into my skin and becomes a part of me like
little turn Old mothers tell their turtle babies this, like,
don't put your head through a loops, just like they
human mothers tell their kids. Don't stick your arm out
of a school bus. Yeah, same same thing, I would guess.
(09:11):
Here's another stat The World Animal Protection Group estimates that
getting snared and ghost gear kills about a hundred and
thirty six thousand seal, sea lions and large whales every year.
And and you know some of these animals are already endangered.
Uh so any conservation efforts are being at the very
(09:33):
least blunted by or stunted I guess both by you know,
these other things going on. It's just it's it's a
staggering problem. This um, the plastics that they use, I
mean back in the day, they used to actually not
even that long ago. Nets were made of things that
would biodegrade, like sometimes they were cotton or hemp um.
(09:55):
And now you know, as we quote advance unquote with synthetics,
they have these plastics that these things could be out
there for five or six hundred years. Yeah, and when
they if they do break up, then the animals eat
that stuff and die. Yeah. Do you remember our great
Pacific garbage patch episode from years and years ago. Yeah,
(10:16):
that factors in for sure. Yeah. Well, so a lot
of this stuff goes and and is attracted to that
those huge gyres out there in the ocean. And we
talked about in in that episode about how plastic photo
degrades when it's just out there in the sun. The
motion of ocean currents combined with the sun photo degrading it.
(10:37):
It breaks it down into smaller and smaller bits that
become part of the food chain, which is not good.
You don't want your food chade eating petroleum based plastics.
And that's what commercial fishing gear is made out of,
which again that's why it lasts so long, hundreds of
years um, which is what you want. You want something
very durable in your fishing gear. But when it gets loose,
it's a big problem. And like you said, it's a
(11:00):
early recent problem too, because it wasn't that long ago
like that people were using nets that degraded a lot,
a lot easier. Yeah, I mean it says, uh, it
says in here. I'm not sure where you source this,
but fifty or sixty years ago. So in the history
of fishing, this, this synthetic netting is pretty new. Um.
And this isn't just like and we're gonna talk a
(11:21):
lot about animals, because that's sort of the main problem,
but um, it's an issue to the industry to like
it says right here that here in the US, they've
estimated that uh, one single ghost net that's lost or
discarded or whatever can kill almost twenty dollars worth of
(11:42):
dungeness crab over a ten year span. That's just one net, right,
And then there's like you could buy you could buy
seven that amount of money. I knew you'd get some
comedy in there. Uh. And then there are you know,
the small vessels, uh, small and even larger vessels that
can get tangled the stuff. They're divers that can't navigate
(12:03):
through the stuff, so there is a bit of a
human impact as well. Um. I think we should take
a break though, because I'm getting hot under the collar, Okay,
and we'll come back and talk about more of this
stuff right after this. Alright, chuck. So we've we've kind
(12:37):
of given a good overview. But let's get into just
how fishing gear could kill marine animals. And there's there's
a number of different ways and it kind of depends
on the animal. So to start off with, um, we
mentioned how a seat turtle might be like, oh, what's
what's on the other side of this loop? Danger? Right? Um?
(12:59):
Young seal pups might be doing the same thing. There's
a very famous picture of a turtle with a six
pack ring. Yeah, man, and its shell is normal size
on either side of the six pack ring. But then
it looks like it's one of those waste trainers people
who have have worn a corset for ten years. It's
basically the same thing that nylon. That's exactly what this
(13:22):
commercial fishing gear is made out of. It's made out
of plastic nylon or nilon plastic, and um, it holds
fast and when it when a turtle gets stuck in
it or gets it stuck around them when they're young,
as they grow it. Basically they have to grow around
this thing. And it's not good. It's not good for
your physiology, it's not good for locomotion. You're going to
(13:44):
be a stunted little turtle when you grow up like that. Yeah,
they I think you mentioned obviously marine mammals that need
to surface. Um, they could die within minutes just because
they're simply trapped. They can be affixiated through like immediately
like that, or through you know, over the course of
(14:06):
months and years die slow, awful, more awful deaths. Uh.
They can prevent them from feeding, like like you said,
if something gets wrapped around their mouth and they literally
just can't open their mouth, they will starve to death
or locomotion can be affected too, right, So if you
are a slow turtle, yeah, you're gonna have trouble going
after food. Um, and you may starve to death like
(14:30):
that as well. Yeah, or you know, swimming circles for
the rest of your life because like one side of
your body is entangled, right. Um, so you said there
there you can kind of break down the manner of
death into acute or chronic One of the sad chronic
ones that got me was from towing. Right. Yeah, So
(14:50):
let's say you're a whale, your decent size mammal, thank you,
you're swimming, you're swimming along, and you get a net
stuck on you, like hell fast, You're stuck. You could
still conceivably swim along for a while, for a very
long while, but now you have basically what amounts to
an extra appendage, a ghost net dragging from you. That's
(15:12):
bad enough as it is, because these nets are enormous.
Like I was reading about tuna nets. Some tuna fishers
use these nets that fall like seven hundred feet deep
and are a mile wide. So you get a segment
of that, even just a segment of what are those
nets on you? It's going to drag you down, make
it harder for you to just move normally. But then
(15:34):
on top of that, that net is probably going to
catch other animals over time, So not only are you
dragging this net, you're also dragging all the animals who
have been caught in that same net, and um have
probably died. And then eventually you're just going to not
be able to keep up any longer, and you you do,
you drown. Yeah, like I can't imagine a lot of
(15:56):
things more just shameful for for humans than seeing a
blue whale dragging a hundred foot net full of dead
sea animals behind it until it dies. It's pretty bad.
Like I couldn't even have conceived of something that awful
(16:17):
until I've learned about the stuff. It's last word is
why serious? Um? I know this is not a it's
not a happy episode. It's not. It's and the other
problem is it's I think this is one reason a
lot of people haven't heard of this too. It's like,
(16:38):
how many more problems can we have to deal with?
It's just add one more to the pile, and it
makes it really hard not to just get like like
catastrophe fatigued. You know, but you just you can't. You can't.
You can't do that. You can't let it happen. You
gotta go take a break, shake it off, and come
back at it with with vigor, or you need to
(17:00):
say this one, this one means something to me so
much so that I'm actually going to do something about this.
I'm not just gonna like click my tongue and shake
my head and keep scrolling through my Twitter feed. I'm
gonna do something about this. No matter whether it's dealing
with ghost fishing or dealing with climate change or whatever
(17:20):
strikes you in that way, go after it. And that's
that's probably the best thing you can do that rather
than trying to take on everything at once. I totally agree, man.
And I also uh poo poo the idea that like, well,
you can't say this is bad when you still do this. Yeah,
though it can all be bad. Yeah, And like you
(17:43):
can't not everyone can tackle everything. So if you want
to be an advocate for for dogs on the street
and go do that, um, because the obvious thing would
be for people say well, don't eat fish, don't support
the industry, right, and like how can you eat How
can you be a dog advocate and still eat fish?
Are you going on? You're worse than Hitler? But I say, like,
(18:07):
find whatever is meaningful to you and try and affect
change there as best you can. Yeah, but you know,
and then you can say I spent every weekend for
the last year cleaning up ghost fishing nets and saving
seal pups. What did you do, judge? Uh, so, how
does this happen? I think that's an enough Like we've
(18:30):
hit people over the head pretty hard with this stuff.
Are you sure? I think, I mean, there'll be some
more stats in here, but I think they get the point. Um,
how does this stuff happen? Uh? And I'm and I'm
asking us both And I'll go ahead and say one
thing is sometimes it's accidental. Sometimes there's bad weather, um,
and you you have to abandon your gear. Yeah. There
(18:52):
was a two thousand nine UM United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organization report that found that most ghost fishing gear
is not intentionally discarded, that most of it is accidentally lost, right,
which is good that that makes you feel a little better.
And it's not just fisherman don't like who ca yeah
(19:14):
see you in hell see, but that that also does happen.
It does sadly, it's nice to know that that's not
the bulk of it, right, So that when it's unintentional,
when it's accidental or something like that. In active nature,
a lot of times it's just um, severe weather, like
a big storm comes up and just breaks your lines
(19:34):
and all of a sudden all of your nets are lost.
And believe me, if you're a commercial fisherman, that is
about the worst thing that can happen to you short
of sinking while you're out, you know, especially if your
net was already full and you're reeling it in and
you lost it because of nature. Um, that's that's that's
bad for everybody. Another thing that can happen is and
(19:56):
this is one of the bad ones. You could be
have elite a gear, or be fishing illegally, maybe using
a method you shouldn't or in a place you shouldn't be,
and you, uh, there's what's called enforcement pressure, and you
abandon your gear because you don't want to get in trouble. Yeah,
there basically just kind of whistle like I wasn't doing anything. Um.
(20:19):
There's also what they call spatial pressure, where if you
have some nets floating along and another boat comes into
the area, doesn't see it, and runs over them, basically
cut some loose from their moorings. Then that has just
become ghost fishing gear itself. Yeah. The economic pressure I
(20:41):
don't fully get this. What I would imagine that could
mean is, you know, it would cost us more to
go out and retrieve these things than to just go
back to port and get these guys off the clock.
That's part of it. That is definitely part of it,
I think, like if you're I think more often than not,
(21:01):
is if your gear is all torn up or whatever,
and if you take it back to port and you're
charged a fee for dumping it because it's considered waste,
Like I think that's that's how it's treated in the Netherlands.
It makes more sense for you just litter if you're
gonna have to pay to have it disposed of properly,
(21:22):
the well the sea can take it. I'll just cut
it loose and look the other way and go back
home and say, what fishing gear. I don't have anything
to throw away. So that's economic pressure. And to me,
we'll talk about later. That is the key dissolving ghosts
fishing if you ask me, Yeah, and real quickly, like
I don't think we said for sure, it's not always
(21:43):
just nets um like crab pots and traps and nets
for sure, fishing line, hooks, rope. And the one that
really chase me is packing bands. So these bands around
bait boxes and stuff, those are clearly just dumped. Oh yeah,
they just tossed it over the side. Yeah, And that's
(22:04):
actually in violation of a United Nations UM convention from
y three that basically was looking to stop pollution from
ships and um, you're not supposed to throw anything over
the side, from those packing bands to cooking oil that
you fried your French fries in. Like, nothing is supposed
(22:24):
to go over the side except possibly fishing trails from
cleaning fish. It's called the Don't be a Huge Jerk Convention. Yeah,
of ninety that was a heck of a convention. Uh
so some of the indirect it was, wasn't it. It's
basically like a Max Funcan convention. I remember that and
Fred Rogers that was the keynote speaker. It's pretty great. Uh.
(22:48):
Some of the indirect causes and we'll see here in
a bit. One of the biggest, biggest problems is, like
you said, when you come back in with maybe unwanted
fishing gear and there's a where to dispose of it. Um,
just simply a lack of these facilities at port uh
is a big, big problem. Yeah, And that could is
(23:08):
that what you said could fix at all, no putting making,
changing it from being an economic burden economic incentive to
bring in your old fishing gear. I think that will
change it. But that's what you just said is a
huge part of that you need to have places for
people that either take it and get money in exchange
(23:29):
for their old stuff, or at the very least just
throw it in a bin somewhere and not get charged
for it. Yeah, exactly, because you know, if you if
you know that you can just throw it away right
when you get to shore, it's only going to take
up that space on your way back in. Um, there's
a pretty good chance that you're not going to litter
(23:50):
a mile wide net, you know, especially and especially if
you can get money for it. Yeah. And another one
of the big problems here, uh, in this one article
you sent was it's I think you know these these
commercial fishermen are I used to watch Deadliest Catch. I
know how these guys are. Uh. They're notoriously stubborn about
(24:12):
new uh technologies, or ironically, it wouldn't be a new
technology if they tried to go back to biodegradable nets.
But just convincing these uh these men and women too
add extra expense or add an extra trip to buy
something that will help the the environment. It's a hard sell,
(24:32):
even though, like dudes, you're costing yourself crab money, because
like twenty grand one lost net can cost twenty dollars
with a crab over ten years. I think they live
more in the trip to trip mindset. Yeah, but I
think that their industry as a whole thinks of it
as like the over ten year kind of thing. And
(24:54):
so from what I understand, the industry is kind of
woken up to this a little more are and it's
starting to take measures a little bit. And we'll talk
about that. But um, yeah, it's it's entirely possible that
individual fishermen are just kind of like this is not
worth it. Yeah. This one quote in here really kind
of drives at home. And I've never heard of the
phrase tragedy of the commons, um, but I like it.
(25:15):
It says, as as with so many tragedy of the
common scenarios, the responsibility to actialize with everyone and the
incentive with no one, and that kind of drives at home.
There's no like, you know, a lot of times are
international waters there. I know, when they have made inroads
with some of these big commercial companies, they're a little
hesitant to get too involved because all of a sudden,
(25:38):
there name is printed in an article. Even if they're
trying to do the right thing, just being associated with
this stuff. They don't even want, you know, even if
they're trying to help out a little bit. Yeah, because
again it's just one more problem. More morris, you know. Yeah,
Like if a company stood up and said so and
so company is is making an effort to, uh, now
(25:58):
do this, then the flip side is like, well, what
have you been doing? That's true? Why did it take
this long? Yeah, that's definitely true. And so companies a
little reticent to even get involved, you know. Yeah, but
I think um, as of two thousand and fifteen, there
is a kind of a new initiative that started that's
that's bringing more people into the fold and making it
(26:20):
safe to join up. I remember what it was a
man that was a McDonald's something I can't remember now, pizza.
It was some new sandwich or something that said it's
like now made with like real chicken or something like that.
And that was like you put that on a sign
because everyone that saw that was like, what was I
(26:43):
eating for the past thirty years? No, with ingredients that
may not kill you. Um, let's take another break and
then we'll come back. We'll we'll take a quick trip
around the world and then we'll talk about what some
people are doing to combat ghost fish. Yeah, litt bit
of good news. Okay, alright, chuck, we're back and we're
(27:27):
in the home stretch. We're gonna solve this problem. But first,
let's go shame different parts of the world. Yes, let's uh,
how about we step onto my little dinghy and um
take a trip around the world. Okay, we'll take us
a while because my little dingy is slow, but we'll
get there eventually. Let's head to the Northeast Atlantic. Yeah,
(27:50):
we're we already talked about the thousand nets that are
tossed in there every year. All right, we've already been there,
and so I just wasted our three months getting there. Apologies.
All right, so we're stuck in the Northeast Atlantic. I apologize.
It's now going to take us six months to navigate,
uh through the midwest of the United States, through Nebraska
(28:12):
and Kansas in our boat. Maybe we should wear portaging
that's along boardage all the way to the northeast Pacific. Yeah,
in Washington State, Well that would be northwest, well, northeast
Pacific Ocean. I guess northwest US, but yeah, northeast Pacific.
So Washington State has oh, man, we already talked about this.
(28:35):
To remember, out of eight hundred and seventy gill nets
they rescued or they found, thirty, man, we we already
made it here. I hate backtracking, all right, carry you back, um,
all right, let's go to the northwest Atlantic, all right,
and we surely we haven't been there. I don't believe
we have the Gulf of St. Lawrence, for God's sake,
(28:57):
No we haven't. Okay, snow crab, this is one snow
crab fishery. Um, they lose about eight hundred traps a
year in this one fishery. And uh, some say that
each fisher like each boat may lose up to in
a year of their traps. And this is an old like,
(29:19):
this isn't an old fish tale. That's the National Oceanic
and Atmosphere Administration's just speak Bay Office saying an old
fish tale. Yeah, this isn't Finding Dory. I never saw
that one, but I did like, Um, what was it? Nemo?
I think, right, I haven't seen either one of them.
Oh you haven't seen Finding Nemo. No, we'll save it,
(29:43):
save it. Well, Emily doesn't like any of those movies ever,
So yeah, because every one of them has some sort
of sad death like she got after Bamby when she
was a kid. She's like, I'm done. Yeah this one,
this one has that too. Yeah, most of them do.
And I said, that's a significant reason it's a good movie.
Well that's why. I mean, that's the theory is that
(30:05):
that's why they do that, is to kind of teach
kids about death. Sure, because I mean it's so sanitized
and like kept out of sight in our society. That's
a good service, all right, finding Nemos on the list,
then yeah, you'll like it. You won't regret seeing where
should uh? Southwest Southeast Asia? Um, well, the Arabian Sea.
(30:26):
Let's make a little stop over there. They actually they're
all woke over there. They figured out that they're people
were losing back in two thousand two about two hundred
and sixty thousand traps per year. Yeah, which is a
problem not just for like say the lobster or crab
or shrimp that they're intended for. They, um, they there's
(30:47):
a lot of by catch that, say, like a lobster
trap can catch as well, like fish can make their
way in there too. So you've got two hundred sixty
thousand traps just floating around, no longer providing any seafood
for anybody. They're just death traps, literal death traps. That's
a problem. And so the United Arab Emirates UM ruled
(31:09):
that you had to put a biodegradable like face or
panel on the traps from from that point, not from
two to one. So eventually they were just open. Yeah,
eventually that one, that one fish that came in last
would be freed, while the other ones are like UH,
(31:29):
in the Caribbean Gulf of Mexico, this pretty staggering around
UH Guadalupe. UH, they lose about half of their traps
every year during hurricane season yea, which is about twenty traps. Yeah,
half man, that's crazy. And then in UH Louisiana alone,
they think that they lose four to ten million blue
(31:54):
crabs lost to their traps. Just in Louisiana, four to
ten million blue crabs lost. All right, So this has
all been super depressing. UM. What can be done about it?
People are are trying to take action. There was an
UH an initiative in London founded by the World Animal
(32:17):
Protection It's an ng O UH and the Global Ghost
Gear Initiative it's pretty cool name. Uh. And here's the deal. Like, Sadly,
when you're first getting efforts like this going, a lot
of this stuff that they're doing is like simply gathering
data because it's hard to get support because people say, well,
(32:40):
what's the data, what's it looking like? And if you say, well,
we don't really have great data yet, then they're kind
of grounded. So yeah, so the very first steps, um
is evidence building and reviewing policies and kind of not
rubber meets the road kind of things. But unfortunately those
have to be the first steps, right. But are they're
(33:00):
starting to gather data from some of the rubber meets
the road stuff. Um. So like if we can go
back over to the Pacific northwest right to the northeast Atlantic. Um.
I think there's like a little pilot program in Washington State,
uh to like clean up ghost fishing stuff and and
(33:24):
from I think two thousand ten, um, oh, no, two
thousand and seven they were they recovered four eighty one
lost gill nets. Right, so this kind of stuff where
you've got people, I think they they had like a
few million dollars from the government and just started a program. Um,
when you've got people doing these things, and then you
(33:45):
have a central organization like the Global Ghost Gear Initiative,
then the gears start moving, the wheels start moving, like
things start happening, because then you start to generate the data,
and then you can start to make the press releases.
Then you can start to like get the the public
aware of this kind of thing, and then you get
pressure on industry and then industry shapes up. Yeah. Here's
(34:06):
one of my favorite things too, and this is not
just for this industry and this problem, but one of
my favorite favorite things in the world is when someone
comes along and says, hey, I'll take that waste product
you have because I can use it. That's what I'm
saying is going to be the key. Yeah, for sure.
And this is already happening a little bit because like
a lot of things, you can generate power through some
(34:28):
of this stuff. So that's one way that I think
there's a company called networks. It's a like an organ
or it's like there's a few companies that came together
to to make networks. I think, well, in their case,
I don't think they're turning into energy, but they're turning, uh,
fishing nets into carpet tiles, carpet tiles, boom great. Right,
(34:51):
there is a one called fishing for energy that's like no, uh,
Covanta Energy, right, and then of course Schnitzer Steel the
face of ghost Gear. They they all came together and
started putting UM gear recycling outposts and I think eleven states,
(35:12):
all over the place, all over the coasts of eleven states,
so that when fishermen come in, whether you're just a
little solo person and you've got some monofilament line left over,
or you're a commercial guy, you can just throw your
old gear in here and it gets recycled, right. And
then they take it, and I think Schnitzer Steel UM
takes it and get strips all the metal from it
(35:33):
for recycling, and then what's left goes to Covanta Energy
and they turn it into energy. I looked high and
low to exactly how they do that, and I couldn't
find it. So it makes me a little nervous about
what they're doing to turn this into energy. But they
supposedly have created enough energy from the stuff that they've
um that's been recycled to power like homes for a month.
(35:58):
That's amazing. Yeah, And I mean this is this is
stuff that otherwise would have just gone out stayed out
in the sea and drowned whales and and turtles. You
like skateboarding, Sure, there's a sustainable skateboard retailer name b
u r e oh Bureo and they are turning uh,
(36:20):
fishing nets into skateboards. Like how cool is that? Yeah?
Just pretty cool because they're actually buying fishing net from fishermen.
Like there they use stuff, so they're giving money for
it and then they're turning around and using it to recycle.
It's pretty cool. And then there's there's a lot of
stuff you could do if you if you don't have
(36:40):
a skateboard company or you're not an energy company. Um.
There's a group called ghost Fishing and they Um, I
think that's what they're called, right, ghost fishing. I'm not
it's just goes. I think it's just goes fishing anyway. Um.
They yeah, they're they're group of divers. They were wreck
(37:02):
divers in the North Sea. I think they're originally based
maybe in the Netherlands. Um, and they noticed on these
wrecks that like there was tons of like ghost gear.
Apparently it's a big problem with shipwrecks, so that's why
it's kind of dangerous for humans, and then also gets
caught up on coral and stuff too, so they started
cleaning up. They took it upon themselves and start cleaning
(37:23):
up some of these wrecks. And then little by little,
this little group of like friends that were you know,
wreck divers that started cleaning it up, started making connections
with other groups of divers all around the world. And
now all of a sudden, the Ghost Fishing I think
Ghost Fishing Alliance or Initiative is um. This this multinational
(37:45):
network of people who love scuba diving and who spend
some of their scuba diving time cleaning up ghost nets.
And there's actually pictures of these people like freeing seal
pups from ghost fishing nets. You know, it's pretty cool.
Like if you're into scuba diving, there's something you can
do right there. Yeah, imagine there are not many better
(38:05):
sleeps at night you can get than having spent your
day free and seal pups. You probably sleep pretty well. Uh.
In Australia, we can't leave you out. There are a
couple of cool things going on there. Um. There's a
program called or a group called ghost nets Australia and
they've been partnering with indigenous groups to basically help cleaning
(38:27):
up you know, this stuff in individual areas. Uh. And
then there's another fishery, Like we kind of have been
picking on the fisheries and some of these companies, but um,
some are getting on board. There's one in Australia called
the Northern Prawn Fishery, So definitely give them your support
if you live there. Uh. They're working with the World
Animal Protection Group two. UH. They report sightings, they report
(38:51):
ghost gear locations basically like here's where it is at
least and sometimes they're even involved in retrieving some of
this stuff and setting some of these animals free they
come across it. Yeah, I think that's like, that's part
of it. You know, there's there's you gotta have the
government involved to set up you know, recycling stations or whatever,
to fund pilot programs to get the data going. But
(39:13):
and then with industry, you have to educate industry, you
have to give them financial incentives to keep their nets
bringing to bring them back ashore. And then because they're
also the ones who are out there in the sea
to too to make it so that it's a it's
it's they have incentive to stop in and take in
(39:33):
ghost gear when they see it. And part of that
is like what just happened for North pron Fishery. They
just got free advertisement for being the good guys because
they got involved. So good, I think we just solved
the problem. I'll give you another shout out to There's
a brewery from del Rey, Florida, Delray Beach, Florida called
(39:54):
Saltwater Brewery, and they made some news recently because they
debuted a six pack ring that is made um to
bio degrade and it's also edible, So rather than growing
around a turtle or keeping a turtle from growing correctly,
a turtle can actually eat the six pack ring when
(40:14):
it encounters it, if it makes it into the the wall. Yeah, well,
a lot of the crapperies don't even use the rings anymore.
They have the recycled plastic kind of lead things. You know,
good at job, you have me at brewery. Uh. If
you want to know more about ghost fishing or ghost gear,
you can type those words into your favorite search bar,
(40:37):
uh and it will bring up some pretty good stuff.
And since I said stuff, it's time for listener mail.
I'm gonna call this one a T shirt ideas and
an email from a dude that has kind of kept
up with our T shirt names and he wants us
to pick h all three of us to each pick
(40:57):
our favorite. Okay, that would be Jerry, Jerry, you just
knock like a horse on the ground when I get
to a T shirt you like, Hey, guys, love your
show and your tangents are hilarious, But it really cracks
me up are all the funny band names and T
shirt ideas you come up with. I collected a few
of my favorites over the years, and the time has come.
(41:17):
I mean to turn a few of these T shirt
dreams into realities, going to design and print a few
T shirts. But my problem is I can't decide which
phrases to use. So if you could each pick one,
it would really make my day. And there are twelve,
so starting with number one, trusses rock exclamation point, friends,
don't let friends at your candle. That's actually Emily has
(41:40):
that shirt. So that's the thing. Okay, I think some
one might have sent us send that in actually, ok yeah,
because that's happened from time to time, Like we got
um Mike's on pants off t shirt. Yeah. Uh number three,
if you have a beacon, a probe, and a shovel,
you could be Okay. I don't even know if that
one run well. He tied them to the episodes, but um,
(42:03):
for brevity, I'm just gonna read these. Mystery is weird.
I like that one. Not too bad to each their own.
It seems a little snotty these days to have that
like on a shirt. Yeah yeah whatever, Uh Master of
Jamment that maybe mine is that? I think so so far.
(42:26):
Mine is Mystery is weird. I listened to the Tick episode.
I do remember that that's for everybody. This one's pretty good.
Find your own butter. Jerry just knocked on the floor. Okay,
there's Cherry I Viking boy. That's an old one, natural selection, Colin,
it just makes sense. Yeah, that's a good one, a
(42:48):
little preachy. Um, don't scrutinize me. It's aggressive and finally,
less wash our hands as often as possible. M That
mine is Mine's definitely mystery is weird? Okay, I'm gonna
go with Master of Enjama and Jerry definitely likes find
your own butter. Okay. In fact, I think Jerry said
(43:09):
that to me in this office. Who was that uh
that wrote that in? That is from Steve Rickart in
Grand Rapids, Michigan. Steve, and he said, if you send
me your shirt sizes, I'll be sure to make an
extra of each. So I'm an excel m you're probably
a what large? Yeah? Man, I'm right on the border
(43:30):
between like large being a little drapey and medium, like
really showing off way too much. Tum. There's something in
between medium and large. I guess large, Jerry, what are you?
Jerry's a medium? Did she stamp that out? She did? Medium? Unisex,
she said, uh. And then finally he closes with pps
(43:51):
in a place in time where people with big platforms
often use your voices to create division. So refreshing to
listen to your show. I admire respect you show to
all people and the ever you put into being inclusive
and empathetic. Thank you, Steve. Yeah, thanks a lot, Steve.
But hey, find your own butter. All right, everyone turn
on Steve. Uh. If you want to be like Steve
(44:14):
and just come up with a great email, well you
can start by tweeting to us. If you don't like
the email, I'm at Josh, Underscore, Um Underscore Clark. We're
also at s Y s K Podcast. You can join
us on Facebook at Charles W. Chuck Bryant or slash
stuff you Should Know Either one of those two. You
can send us all an email. The Stuff Podcast the
(44:35):
House Touff works dot com and has always joined us
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