Fishing gear entanglement is a global issue, it is the biggest and most serious threat to both small and large cetaceans in our oceans today. Even those that escape or are successfully freed, often die later due to injury or infection.
Thousands of miles of legal fishing nets are trawled through the oceans daily, some so enormous they would be able to fit in 10 Boeing 747 Jumbo Jets, trapping everything in their path. Gillnets, creel ropes and trawl nets are all culpable. Animals unintentionally caught by active fishing gear are known as bycatch. Entanglement in ghost nets – fishing gear that has been lost, abandoned, or discarded – is just as big a problem, as they drift endlessly for hundreds of miles, continuing to cause harm long after the boats have left them behind.
The harm that fishing gear causes cannot be overestimated:
- More than 70% of the North Atlantic right whale population bear scars from previous fishing gear entanglements
- A study showed that female right whales who experienced ‘minor’ entanglements had the lowest chances of successfully breeding.
- An Icelandic study showed that 25-50% of humpback whales had previously been entangled.
- More than 10,000 porpoises die in fishing nets in British waters each year.
- In Scotland, minke whales (the smallest of the baleen whales), represent 87% of reported entanglements.
- Between 1990 and 2014, the UK Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP) carried out over 3,000 post-mortems and 700 animals were found to have died through entanglement.
- The world’s smallest dolphin, the Maui, in New Zealand now number less than 50
- There are now fewer than 10 of the world’s smallest porpoise, the Vaquita, in the Gulf of California
- Bycatch due to fishing gear also threatens 11 of the 13 species of small cetaceans listed as ‘critically endangered’ on the IUCN Red List
- 370 dolphins (90% of which were common dolphins) washed up on French beaches between December 2022 and January 2023. Most showed signs of being caught in fishing gear.
- From 1991 to 2023, 45 killer whales were entangled in fishing gear in Alaska, 34 died.
The world’s smallest dolphin and the world’s smallest porpoise are both now facing extinction because of net entanglement. We cannot allow that to happen. National and international action is urgently needed as several cetacean species and populations will be lost in the next few decades if these deaths continue.
Positive work is being done around the world to develop new and innovative fishing gear and methods that would greatly reduce the impact on dolphins, whales, and porpoises. However, Marine Connection believes our strongest tool on this issue is public awareness. Consumers have the power to end this threat. Seafood products that carry a sustainable fishing certification or ‘Dolphin Safe’ label do not 100% guarantee that the techniques used have not caused the death of dolphins or whales in the process.
The solution is simple. If you love these remarkable creatures, the single most important thing you can do to ensure their future is to leave all fish off your plate.
Less demand for fish means less deadly fishing gear and a more secure future for dolphins, whales, and porpoises.
