We need to talk about fishing gear in the ocean
Tenderly published an important story today, and we wanted to share it with you right away. While straw-ban campaigns aimed at changing people’s habits regarding single-use plastic have had a real impact, we’ve been ignoring a much bigger problem for the ocean and for the animals in it: fishing.
In addition to the animals on your plate when you consume seafood, eating wild-caught fish is showing support for an industry that is discarding an estimated 640,000 TONS of fishing gear entering our oceans every single year. These abandoned nets and lines, as well as fishing boat accidents, represent over half of the known causes of death for the North Atlantic Right Whale, a species that is now facing extinction within the next 20 years.
Fisheries catch, kill, and discard an overwhelming number of animals besides the ones they are targeting for food. In addition to fish species, whales, dolphins, sharks, turtles, and seabirds are also often killed as a result of poorly regulated fishing practices. The charismatic sea turtles that have often been the face of the anti-straw campaigns? Shrimp trawlers in the Gulf of Mexico are authorized to kill more than 50,000 sea turtles a year (that’s 150 a day).
We’re not suggesting that everyone go back to using single-use plastics without a care, but the problem of ocean pollution is much bigger than straws. Industries that do the most damage must be pressured to change — and fishing is estimated to make up a tenth of marine litter globally.
We hope you’ll share our story from writer Kristin Hugo:
The Plastic Pollution of Fishing Gear is Much Worse Than Straws
