Lat: 34° 42’ N Lon: 143° 19’ W
Today’s early morning began with Kaisei crew capturing a ghost net full of fish, a Chinese weight for a 100-m net, package binding, and a large fishing lure.
A ghost net is a fishing net lost at sea, and it can be hazardous to the environment and to passing vessels. Dr. Neal, our principal investigator, believes ghost nets to be one of the most menacing types of marine debris for several reasons. Myriad organisms get caught in the tangled net as it spirals randomly on an oceanic path. These abandoned nets are no longer in use and as we witnessed fish get caught in the net and die. On top of that, they are a haven for invasive species, which get transported to other places.
Marine life also congregates around and under the net, which increases the likelihood they will ingest debris associated with the ghost nets. When ghost nets get snagged on coral reefs, the coral grows into the net. Often, with a big swell or storm, the coral breaks off the reef, taking new coral growth with it. These broken coral pieces caught up in ghost nets then become destructive, tumbling weeds that roll across the ocean floor destroying more coral. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) marine debris program includes a focus on derelict fishing gear and ghost nets and their recovery. In the Hawaiian Islands, NOAA supports federal, state, and local communities in surveying and collecting derelict fishing gear. NOAA is also working to produce energy sources from recovered ghost nets.
Later in the afternoon, the crew spotted a glass buoy and captured it as a keepsake of this epic sojourn. A small colony of gooseneck barnacles and crabs were living on the buoy and all of the buoys we have collected share this phenomenon. As we slow down to gather other large marine debris, we have seen that these pieces have become homes to an array of living organisms, most commonly barnacles and crabs. We also saw the lower half of a tree with an abundance of creatures on it.
Our afternoon trawl exposed more pre-production pellets and one flying fish.We spotted another ghost net, and Dr. Neal and Heather Coleman dove into the ocean to investigate. Underneath the net was a habitat for a sch
ool of pilot fish and other species of fish. On board Kaisei, Dr. Gonsior seized the opportunity to go fishing and caught a dozen of these small fish from the jack family for future analysis of stomach contents and persistent organic pollutants (POPs).
In the evening, we reached our second CalCOFI sampling site where
further samples were collected. We are looking at CalCOFI sites throughout our mission because they obtain archived data PKST can use for current analysis but also compare dat
a to what oceanic health was in the past. We plan to hit several CalCOFI sites along our research route and compare these sets of data to uncover the progression of our marine debris pollution from past to present.
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