The Ugly Truth
BAN THE USE OF MONOFILAMENT NETS
What started out as a nice evening walk in the rain down to the docks of Port Renfrew, BC on August 7th turned out to be quite a learning experience. And also one of revulsion.
We saw this:
Port Renfrew is a small town along the Pacific Rim of Vancouver Island with a population of 300; fishing and tourism its livelihood. Here a crane is lifting off a dead porpoise (from a Canadian Coast Guard boat) that was trapped and died in a monofilament net. These nets are also known as ghost nets, drift nets, and gill nets. They are banned from use in Canada but are still used in many other countries for fishing. The problem lies in that they become detached or cut loose and are drifting around in the oceans world-wide. They are a deadly threat to all ocean creatures.
These nets are made to be undetected by marine life and an animal that gets caught up in a 'drifting' net cannot escape and dies a slow and painful death. Some die of lack of oxygen (drown) like this porpoise or a combination of starvation and brutality from other creatures. The oceans are full of these nets and world-wide efforts are ongoing to clean up the oceans of these lethal traps. This net likely drifted up from Puget Sound where there is a U.S. effort to eliminate them from the area however the use of monofilament nets is still used in the U.S. fishing industry.
I was asked by one of the sombre-looking local fishermen to post these photos on the internet. It was a reflective time down on the docks as we watched the battered and lifeless porpoise put into the back of a pick-up truck still wrapped in in the nets that snared it. Looking out over the Pacific I wondered what other horrors humans have done that we don't even know about yet and the ugly truths we continue to turn a blind eye.
More photos under the cut. Warning that one of them is not very pleasant to see.
The crane is aiming for the back of the pick-up truck where it will be taken to be examined by Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
In the back of the pick-up truck, the battered corpse of the porpoise estimated to be 2-3 years old by local fishermen is laid. I reached in and touched the net - they are made of a very strong substance.
The Coast Guard boat that found and brought in the dead porpoise.
NETS KILL NEARLY 1,000 MARINE MAMMALS A DAY (National Geographic News)
Port Renfrew, British Columbia