Land to Sea Speaker Series: Ghost Gear

Jan 25, 2022  3:30 - 4:30

(GMT -7:00) Pacific Time

Event URL:  https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/land-to-sea-speaker-series-ghost-gear-tickets-214759991917?aff=ebdssbonlinesearch&keep_tld=1
Cost:  FREE

The third talk in our Land to Sea Speaker Series will be brought to us by David Bethoney, the Executive Director of the Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation, on January 25. Ghost gear, discarded or lost fishing gear, is a threat to ocean health and coastal communities. This gear indiscriminately continues to catch and kill animals and the negative ecological effects, as it accumulates on the seafloor, are well documented. Fishermen anecdotally report thousands of abandoned traps and piles of ghost gear near Rhode Island fishing ports and coastal waters. In this talk, the efforts of fishermen and the Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation to catalyze removal of ghost gear from Rhode Island waters will be presented. A map of ghost gear hot spots within Narragansett Bay was created from interviews with fishermen and selected sites were explored with live-feed underwater cameras. A plan to remove gear from these spots and Rhode Island waters in general is now under development