‘Ghost fishing’ occurs when nets become lost on the seabed but continue to trap fish that eventually die and are removed from the stock – a problem which was identified on the Rockall fishery off the northwest coast of Ireland following a survey by the Irish Sea Fisheries Board (BIM) in 2005, which recovered 261 metres of netting for every kilometre of seabed surveyed.
“Deep Clean” – the most extensive co-ordinated survey of ghost fishing to date within the EC, and undertaken between the Marine Institute and BIM in Ireland and Seafish and CEFAS in the UK – set out in 2008 with the twin objectives of; conducting targeted retrieval exercises of lost, discarded and abandoned nets in deep-water gillnet fisheries greater than 200 metres depth and to accurately estimate the quantity and range of ghost nets in these fisheries. As part of the project, a review of various types of recovery gear was undertaken to identify the most efficient ways of retrieving lost nets.
“One of the first goals of the project was to identify areas where ghost fishing might be a problem,” said Norman Graham of the Marine Institute, who coordinated the project. “To do this, we used information from a range of sources, including vessel monitoring data, ‘on the ground’ experience and interviews with commercial fishermen”.
