We look forward to doing more to help saving this highly endangered species. In Japan, the national federation of fishery associations has begun a three year project to collect ghost gear lost at sea. A recent survey of the sea bed off the coast of Kyushu by Tatsuro Matsuoka, professor of Kagoshima University's school of marine studies, found an average of one ghost net for every 20 square meters in 20 to 40 meter deep areas. The Kagoshima University team dove each month in the area documenting the effect of the ghost gear on marine life. They found that 40 percent of the ghost nets were continuing to catch about 30 species including octopus, crab, flounder and sea bream.
Nets continue to catch fish and crabs after they are lost at sea.
Matsuoka's team estimated 200,000 to 500,000 octopuses annually have been caught in the ghost nets. The Japanese Fisheries Agency found that lost nets and traps are destroying the snow crab populations in the Sea of Japan because the larger crabs cannot escape from the hundreds of traps lost by crabbers every year. The problem of ghost gear has been known internationally since the 1980s, the Fisheries Agency says, but Matsuoka's is the first serious Japanese study. All Rights Reserved. Inc. All Rights Reserved.