We pulled 47 abandoned crab pots out of Moreton Bay last week. Every single one still had bait in various stages of decomposition, and most had trapped animals - dead crabs, fish, even a small turtle that didn’t make it. This is ghost fishing, and it’s a bigger problem than most people realize.

Ghost fishing gear is any fishing equipment that’s been lost, abandoned, or discarded in the ocean and continues catching and killing marine life. Nets, crab pots, lobster traps, fishing line - all of it keeps functioning long after the fisherman has gone home. It’s one of those environmental problems that’s straightforward to understand but remarkably hard to solve.

The scale is difficult to measure precisely because, by definition, we’re talking about gear that’s lost and untracked. Estimates suggest that roughly 10% of marine litter is fishing gear, but that 10% accounts for a disproportionate amount of wildlife impact because it’s specifically designed to catch and trap animals.

I’ve been working on ghost gear removal programs for three years now, coordinating volunteer dive teams and commercial fishing partnerships to locate and remove abandoned equipment. We’ve learned a lot about what works.

Crab pots are the easiest target. They’re large, visible on sonar, and relatively simple to retrieve if you know where they are. The problem is finding them. Moreton Bay alone probably has thousands of abandoned pots scattered across the seafloor. We’re removing them at a rate of maybe a hundred per year, which barely makes a dent.

The pots keep fishing indefinitely. An animal enters, gets trapped, dies, and becomes bait for the next animal. This cycle continues for years until the pot physically degrades or gets buried in sediment. Modern pots made of plastic-coated wire can last decades.

Some jurisdictions require biodegradable panels in traps - sections that will rot away after a certain period, allowing trapped animals to escape. This is good policy when it’s enforced. The problem is enforcement. Inspecting commercial fishing gear isn’t a priority for most fisheries departments, and recreational fishers often aren’t even aware of the requirement.

Fishing nets are harder to remove than pots because they conform to the seafloor and can be enormous. We’ve found sections of net hundreds of meters long draped over reef structures, continuing to trap fish and damaging coral. Removing these requires technical diving skills and often multiple trips to cut the net into manageable sections.

The nets also tend to accumulate marine growth over time, which makes them even harder to remove. A net that’s been on the seafloor for several years might be covered in barnacles, coral, and algae, adding weight and making it difficult to distinguish from natural rock formations.

Fishing line is the most frustrating. It’s everywhere, tangled in every reef and wrapping around every pier piling. It’s too small to see easily but strong enough to trap and kill birds, turtles, fish. We spend hours cutting line away from structures during cleanup dives, knowing we’re only addressing a tiny fraction of what’s out there.

Our most successful removal efforts have come from partnerships with commercial fishers. They know the fishing grounds, they have the equipment to retrieve heavy gear, and frankly, they’re better at it than volunteer divers. We provide funding to compensate them for their time, and they pull up abandoned gear when they’re out fishing anyway.

This partnership model works because it aligns incentives. Fishers benefit from having abandoned gear removed - it’s a navigation hazard and it competes with their active gear. We benefit from their expertise and equipment. The marine environment benefits from having less ghost gear.

We’re also working on prevention, which is ultimately more effective than removal. Lost gear happens for various reasons - storms, snagging on underwater obstacles, marker buoys cut by boat propellers, or just fishers abandoning gear rather than dealing with retrieval.

Some losses are unavoidable, but many are preventable. Better buoy systems, GPS tracking of gear location, requirements to report lost gear so it can be retrieved - these are all policy interventions that reduce ghost gear creation.

The reporting requirement is contentious. Commercial fishers worry about being penalized for lost gear, so they’re reluctant to report losses. We’re trying to shift this by creating a no-penalty reporting system where fishers can notify authorities of lost gear without facing fines, and there’s funding available to help with retrieval costs.

Data collection is part of every removal we do. We record gear type, location, condition, species trapped, and estimate how long it’s been abandoned. This data helps us understand patterns - which areas have the most ghost gear, which gear types are most problematic, which fisheries are losing the most equipment.

The data shows some clear patterns. Crab pot losses spike during storm season when rough weather breaks lines or drags buoys underwater. Net losses correlate with certain fishing grounds where bottom topography makes snagging common. Recreational fishing line accumulates around popular fishing spots - jetties, boat ramps, accessible shore fishing areas.

We’re using this data to target our removal efforts and to inform policy discussions. If a particular reef system is accumulating ghost gear at a high rate, maybe that area needs additional restrictions or monitoring.

The economic cost of ghost fishing is substantial, though hard to quantify precisely. Lost gear represents capital loss to fishers. Ghost fishing depletes fish stocks that commercial fisheries depend on. Damaged marine ecosystems affect tourism. All of these economic impacts argue for investment in prevention and removal.

Tourism operators are increasingly interested in ghost gear removal as a dive activity. We’ve partnered with several dive shops to run “cleanup dives” where paying customers participate in gear removal. This generates funding for the program and raises awareness among recreational divers.

The environmental impact of ghost gear extends beyond direct animal mortality. Nets and lines damage coral and seagrass when they drag across the seafloor. Trapped decomposing animals create localized oxygen depletion. Large accumulations of gear alter habitat structure in ways that affect species distribution.

One thing I’ve learned: you can’t cleanup your way out of this problem. If we removed every piece of ghost gear from Moreton Bay tomorrow, there’d be new abandoned gear within a week. Removal is necessary, but prevention is essential.

This requires cultural change in fishing communities. Viewing lost gear as an environmental problem, not just a cost of doing business. Investing in better gear marking and retrieval systems. Being willing to report losses so gear can be recovered quickly.

We’re seeing some progress. Younger commercial fishers seem more environmentally conscious than previous generations. There’s growing recognition within the fishing industry that ghost gear is bad for everyone - it’s not a “greenies versus fishers” issue, it’s a shared problem that needs shared solutions.

Technology could help too. GPS tracking of gear, underwater locator beacons, biodegradable materials that break down on a predictable timeline. None of this is science fiction - it’s existing technology that just needs to be adopted more widely.

The challenge is cost. A biodegradable crab pot costs more than a traditional one. GPS tracking systems add expense. For commercial fishers operating on thin margins, these costs matter. This is where policy and subsidy programs can help - making the more sustainable options economically viable.

We’ll be continuing our removal programs because the gear that’s already out there isn’t going away on its own. Last week’s 47 crab pots represent 47 traps that are no longer killing wildlife. That’s worth the effort, even knowing there are hundreds more we haven’t found yet.

But the real victory will be when we don’t need removal programs because we’ve prevented the gear from being lost in the first place. That’s the long-term goal, and we’re working toward it one partnership, one policy change, one awareness campaign at a time.