Ghost Nets and Ghost Traps

The most horrible and dangerous things in the ocean are not animals, but rather non-living things called "ghost nets and ghost traps".

Ghost Nets

Ghost nets are fishnets that have been lost or abandoned and float freely around the ocean. Also know as "walls of death", ghost nets capture fish, crabs, turtles, dolphins, seals and other marine creatures and drag them to their death. The nets will become full of captured creatures and sink to the ocean floor. After the dead animals decompose and fall out of the net, it rises up again to continue on its deadly path. Because fishnets are made from durable materials, these nets can last for years killing everything that gets caught in their web.

Ghost Traps

Ghost traps are traps that are also lost or abandoned and remain on the bottom of the ocean. As with the nets, ghost traps can remain intact on the bottom catching eels, lobsters and bottom fish for years and years. To avoid these ghost traps, traps with rot-out panels should be used so that if lost or discarded, the traps will eventually deteriorate, allowing trapped fish and shellfish to escape.

I am researching Ghost nets and Ghost Traps in and aroung the Columbia River and the greater Pacific Northwest. I am looking for information related to tracking how many of these there might be out there and what if anything is being done about them.

There is a reward offered to anyone who has information about Ghost Nets in the Columbia River system. A fine Cigar or bottle of your favorite adult beverage provided by Pilar.

I understand that there is a guy named "Doc" up in Puget Sound that is conducting work in this area. I would like to contact him. If anyone hass information about how to contact him or how to access the information he has compiled I would appreciate it.

Please respond to:

jeeperusa1@netscape.net

Thanks in advance,

Ray

his number supposedly is 1 253 225 0792, he lives about 10 minutes from me, my friends dad is real good friends with him and I recall his number being a 857 but it might be right. there was a post here not to long ago about ghost nets, so you might want to do a search in the archives for it here. he goes by dr. t-ho-ke.

those ghost nets are a problem here in the sound, I cut one out fishing for chums in a estuary in the south sound last fall. it was half buried with about 4 fish tangled up still alive in real shallow water. they attribute many deaths of perch, src, crabs, flounder, juvenile salmon, in shallow water and many bottom fish on the reefs. its a problem I hope the state can inforce stiffer restrictions on types of nets used in the future.