derelict fishing gear

The NOAA Marine Debris Program is celebrating our 10-year anniversary throughout 2016. As part of this celebration, we’d like to take the time to look back on some of our past work. Check out this entangled sea turtle that was found back in 2006 and happily released back into Hawaiian waters, free of marine debris.

Marine debris can impact our ocean in many ways, one of which is wildlife entanglement. On this trip, a sea turtle was found entangled in a derelict fishing net.

As members of the NOAA marine debris removal effort in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands were about to start the process of removing a large derelict net ensnared on some coral, they found a surprise— a poor entangled sea turtle! Each year, NOAA supports this effort to remove marine debris from the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, which resulted in over 14.5 metric tons of debris collected last year alone!

On Friday, February 26^th, the NOAA Marine Debris Program and its partners held an event in Waretown, New Jersey, to highlight an exciting derelict crab pot removal effort in Barnegat Bay. The event highlighted a project, led by the Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey and supported by a NOAA Marine Debris Program Community-based Marine Debris Removal grant, which is working to identify, retrieve, and inventory over 1,000 derelict crab pots from Barnegat Bay, N.J.

Covanta partnered with the Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey to provide two bins for collecting the retrieved derelict gear, to then haul and dispose of at their waste-to-energy facility. 

The 2015 Fishing for Energy Partnership grant awards support projects to help commercial and recreational fishermen and boaters reduce the amount of fishing gear lost in the marine environment.