Aquaculture America 2020

February 9 - 12, 2020

Honolulu, Hawaii

THE MONITORING OF ABANDONED, LOST AND DISCARDED FISHING GEAR THROUGH CITIZEN SCIENCE: A GLOBAL APPROACH

Sarah-Jeanne Royer*, Lars van Garderen, Eric Gilman, Laurent Lebreton.
 
* Scripps Institution of Oceanography, San Diego 92037, California, United States
The Ocean Cleanup Foundation, 3014 JH Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
sroyer@ucsd.edu
 

Marine debris has been substantially increasing over the past decades and most of it is made of synthetic material. Current estimates available for annual plastic mass emissions into the ocean are mostly accounting for terrestrial sources but do not include an important component of the plastic mass budget found in marine waters; fishing gear. Indeed, there is relatively limited information available on the levels of abandoned, lost and discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) on a yearly basis worldwide. However, we are aware that the amount, distribution and effects of ALDFG have risen substantially over recent decades with the rapid expansion of fishing effort, fishing grounds, and the transition to synthetic, more durable and more buoyant materials used for fishing gear. For this reason, there is a need for more robust estimates of the amount of ALDFG generated each year to add this important component to annual plastic mass emissions into the ocean. Here, we present a citizen science project where volunteers from around the globe collected information on ALDFG in different fishing harbors. Using the seven most commonly types of fishing techniques around the world, 16 volunteers from 14 countries helped collecting information using standardized surveys. Preliminary results will be presented here along with the method used and some of the challenges encountered.