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Writer's pictureJack Nessen
Nov 17, 20171 min read

Marine Entanglement

Updated: Dec 1, 2017



Marine Entanglement refers to the process in which marine animals are tangled up in and caught in suspended debris, similar to the picture on your left.


Imagine swimming through the ocean, happy as can be as you enjoy the water. All of a sudden, you swim into a large fishing net and become trapped! You can't move, you can't swim, even shouting for help becomes difficult. The net starts to weigh you down and panic settles in.


Sounds like a nightmare doesn't? For many marine species, this is reality. An astounding number of animals are constantly doing battle with large floating debris items. Things like fishing nets, plastic tarps, derelict lobster and crab pots pose a very real and serious threat to larger marine species like whales, dolphins, turtles and birds.


As you can imagine, marine entanglement has some very serious effects on marine wildlife. It

can causes severe external damage and can inhibit fluid motion of the animal. These can then turn into complications while migrating, mating, hunting and foraging and even

communication. Many bird species are especially vulnerable to entanglement as they skim the surface of the ocean looking for prey species and become tangled in fishing lines, 6-pack holders or fishing nets. These objects can wrap themselves around the birds' beaks and restrict their ability to eat, communicate and defend themselves from predation.


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The Problem With Plastic

Plastic just may be the most helpful material ever created, and the most harmful. 

 

After World War II, plastic goods sales exploded in the United States. Radio and early TV commercials heralded the emergence of plastics as the "cure all" for the modern home. Single-use plastic goods offered ease and simplicity to homemakers with the idea that plastics, would reduce the workload within the home. Soon enough, plastics dominated the American landscape, finding their way into cuisine, medicine, infrastructure, technology and more.

 

Americans and eventually countries worldwide would develop an addiction for plastic goods, especially single-use plastics, or items that are used only once, and then thrown away. In 2017, our oceans, the life that resides within them and, even us, are feeling the toll of our unchecked usage of plastics as it threatens the balance in which the health of our oceans so desperately hangs. 

 

Plastics enter the ocean in a variety of ways. They can be blown in by wind or rain. They can flow through surface water throughout our watersheds until they reach the ocean. They can be dumped directly into the ocean. They can be littered onto our beaches and lapped up by the waves. Regardless of how it reaches the ocean, all plastics pose a serious threat to marine life

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