Discarded nylon fishing nets kill many mammals

Press, 5 November 1984, Page 8

Discarded nylon fishing nets kill many mammals

NZPA-AP Gland, Switzerland More than 750,000 seabirds and 100,000 sea mammals are killed every year by lost or discarded nylon ocean fishing nets, according to a report in the World Wildlife Fund’s bimonthly newspaper. A large-scale switch by fishermen from twine to cheaper nylon fishing nets for drift fishing is largely responsible for a huge increase in ocean debris that kills the birds and mammals, a New Zealand marine biologist and fisherman, Mr Michael Donoghue, told the W.W.F.

Mr Donoghue, said the nylon nets were harder to see and detect acoustically in the water, confusing many sea mammals who rely on hearing to navigate. As a result, he said, they get entangled and drown. Mr Donoghue said that stationary “gill-nets”' used

in coastal fishing also kill marine life, noting, for example, that a Taiwanese gill-net fishery off the coast of northern Australia kills some 5000 spotted dolphins and false killer whales each year, while similar nets kill some 17,000 porpoises a year off the coast of Sri Lanka.

In addition to lost nets, the report said that commercial fishermen further clutter the ocean by dumping each year, millions of kilograms of packing and other plastic rubbish into the North Sea, annually killing some 50,000 to 90,000 northern fur seals.

Mr Donoghue reported that in spite of huge amounts of North Pacific drift-net fishing by Japan, Taiwan, and Korea, almost none of their operations were subject to direct regulation by treaty or to scrutiny by international observers.