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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Speaker 1: Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry your own rolling.
Speaker 1: Put three of us together, get us to talking. You
Speaker 1: got stuff you should know, and you have afternoon tea.
Speaker 1: M I am having some tea right now. I see that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's um, what's that Tazo stuff with the passion fruit
Speaker 1: and you know hibiscus and everything. I think that's the
Speaker 1: Todso passion fruit hybiscus ta oh yeah that one is
Speaker 1: that buzz marketing yeah, well he buzz market for worse
Speaker 1: than t I guess maybe a local heroin dealer who
Speaker 1: who's puts fent and all in it without telling you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that about Jimmy on the corner. Right. We should probably
Speaker 1: not talk too much about heroin though, Chuck, because I'll
Speaker 1: bet you this episode gets played in a decent amount
Speaker 1: of like middle schools. Yeah, and I'm glad we got
Speaker 1: in a couple of jokes early on, because, um, I
Speaker 1: think ghost fishing will rank alongside like the MS Show
Speaker 1: and the HIV shows as the least funny things to
Speaker 1: talk about. Yeah, it is pretty sad, actually, and I
Speaker 1: want to actually find ways for humor. And I was like,
Speaker 1: this is really awful and sad. Well, we'll just take
Speaker 1: our usual tech where if it if it ears its head,
Speaker 1: well we'll jump on it and shake it around and
Speaker 1: hold it up for everybody to see. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that's what we do. I think one of the things
Speaker 1: that was most depression depression, uh depressing to me was
Speaker 1: the I didn't know about all this and then I'm
Speaker 1: like in the mid forties and I'm just learning about this. Well,
Speaker 1: you know how we learned about it. You remember first
Speaker 1: hearing about this. We got an email from and I
Speaker 1: feel like such a heel. We got an email from
Speaker 1: a class, like a group um in a class. I
Speaker 1: want to say. It was probably a middle school class
Speaker 1: who had done a project on ghost fishing, and they said,
Speaker 1: you know who would want to do an episode on
Speaker 1: this is Josh and Chuck. So they're the ones who
Speaker 1: brought this to our attention. And I cannot find the email.
Speaker 1: It's gone. So I'm very sorry group from class that
Speaker 1: I can no longer identify. But you guys, if you
Speaker 1: rode in to tell us to do an episode about
Speaker 1: ghost fishing and gave us some sources to start with,
Speaker 1: you're the only ones who so we're talking about you.
Speaker 1: I think it was Mrs Bailey's oceanography class. That's right
Speaker 1: at uh Sherman Hemsley Middle School and round Rock, Texas. Man,
Speaker 1: that show, Amen, was all right. I never watched that.
Speaker 1: Oh you didn't know? It was pretty good. I mean
Speaker 1: it was just basically George Jefferson as a preacher, yeah,
Speaker 1: which is great. Yeah, you could watch him do anything,
Speaker 1: you know, George Jefferson as a garbage man, George Jefferson
Speaker 1: as the president, George Jefferson is rescuing sea turtles for
Speaker 1: ghost fishing? Is he still with us? I don't know?
Speaker 1: All right, so um, we should This is definitely one
Speaker 1: of the ones we should not just start talking about
Speaker 1: without defining it. First. Most people don't know what ghost
Speaker 1: fishing is. Yeah, And sadly, like you said before we
Speaker 1: hit record, Jerry, uh always asked us what we're doing today,
Speaker 1: and you said, ghost fishing. What sounds a lot cooler
Speaker 1: than it is when I when you sent it over,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, ghost fishing, that sounds really neat,
Speaker 1: but it's no, there's nothing neat about it. No, no,
Speaker 1: but it does have a cool name. Agreed. Yeah, technically
Speaker 1: the definition is called abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gear
Speaker 1: a l d f G. And what this is is
Speaker 1: professional commercial fishing gear. Uh. And I'm sure there's a
Speaker 1: small amount of recreational fishing gear, but that's not the
Speaker 1: real issue. But commercial fishing gear that has been left
Speaker 1: out to see that then goes on to just kill
Speaker 1: and maim sea life for hundreds of years. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's awful. Yeah, And it's a real, really big problem.
Speaker 1: Like just to give one example, will kind of go
Speaker 1: around the world a little bit later, but just in
Speaker 1: the northeast Atlantic Um there they found in one fishery.
Speaker 1: So if you if you look at a c that
Speaker 1: in a higher seas going to have like different fisheries,
Speaker 1: different areas where they're like lots of fish. Typically in
Speaker 1: just one of those little spots in one sea in
Speaker 1: the world, they found something like five thousand nets. But
Speaker 1: this is what they estimated, nets totaling about twelve hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty kilometers in length that were lost every year,
Speaker 1: every year. So I want to put that into scale, right,
Speaker 1: I did a little Google mapping. Kilometers will get you
Speaker 1: from New York to Chicago. It will be yeah, like
Speaker 1: a hundred million. Um. It will get you from Brisbane
Speaker 1: to Canberra. I don't know where that second place is there,
Speaker 1: so they're both in Australia. And then it will also
Speaker 1: get you a little under a round trip between London,
Speaker 1: London and Edinburgh. Yeah, so it's a that's a lot
Speaker 1: of netting and that's just was lost in that one
Speaker 1: fishery every year. Yeah, we might as well just throw
Speaker 1: out a few of these because this is gonna be
Speaker 1: a lot of staggering stats. Uh. The U N Environmental
Speaker 1: Program UNIP and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the
Speaker 1: United Nations Nations. And this is a conservative estimate. They
Speaker 1: said that six hundred and forty thousand tons a fishing
Speaker 1: gear or left in the oceans each year. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: did another a little bit of more googling. You're ready, okay?
Speaker 1: That that is equal to five hundred and fifty six thousand,
Speaker 1: five hundred and twenty one Ford Fiestas just dumped in
Speaker 1: the ocean every year by way out Ford Fiesta's just
Speaker 1: to sully their name. I don't know, because I mean
Speaker 1: four Fista is a well selling car all around the world,
Speaker 1: so everybody knows what a Ford Fiesta looks like. I
Speaker 1: probably couldn't pick one out on the road, but sure
Speaker 1: you could too. You would just know intuitively that that's
Speaker 1: a Ford Fiesta. Uh. Here's another example, UM, Washington State
Speaker 1: right here in the United States. UM, they did a
Speaker 1: little clean up job there recently. And we'll get to
Speaker 1: the cleanup efforts because it is happening on a smaller scale,
Speaker 1: hopefully increasing. But in this one area they got, uh
Speaker 1: they wrangled eight hundred and seventy ghost nets, UM, and
Speaker 1: that contained more than thirty two thousand marine animals. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this is just in one part of Washington State.
Speaker 1: And and if you say, well, who cares about marine animals, well,
Speaker 1: everything that included five hundred birds and mammals. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: we're talking like like big big males, like whales. This
Speaker 1: affects everything from whales on down to little tiny fish.
Speaker 1: These things are just out there floating around. They get
Speaker 1: loose um one way or another, and they just float
Speaker 1: through the oceans and they can travel very very long
Speaker 1: distance is and along the way, animals get trapped at them.
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole point of commercial fishing gear is
Speaker 1: to trap animals. The problem is is when you when
Speaker 1: they're operating correctly, they're reeled in and they bring the
Speaker 1: animals with them and then people eat them and you
Speaker 1: can have issues with that or whatever, but at least
Speaker 1: they're not just completely going to waste, which is the
Speaker 1: problem with ghost fishing. These things are like floating little
Speaker 1: islands of death that trapped all manner of sea life. Um.
Speaker 1: And then they just die one way or another, either
Speaker 1: very quickly depending on whether they need to breathe like
Speaker 1: their marine mammal and they can't surface or there um.
Speaker 1: A sea turtle that um that that can't feed any
Speaker 1: longer because it's it's got a net growing around its
Speaker 1: mouth because it stuck its head through a loop when
Speaker 1: it was a juvenile, Yeah, and said, oh what's in
Speaker 1: there that looks neat? Let me stick my face in it.
Speaker 1: And now I have a net, and then I grow
Speaker 1: bigger in the net stays there, uh and potentially cuts
Speaker 1: into my skin and becomes a part of me like
Speaker 1: little turn Old mothers tell their turtle babies this, like,
Speaker 1: don't put your head through a loops, just like they
Speaker 1: human mothers tell their kids. Don't stick your arm out
Speaker 1: of a school bus. Yeah, same same thing, I would guess.
Speaker 1: Here's another stat The World Animal Protection Group estimates that
Speaker 1: getting snared and ghost gear kills about a hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty six thousand seal, sea lions and large whales every year.
Speaker 1: And and you know some of these animals are already endangered.
Speaker 1: Uh so any conservation efforts are being at the very
Speaker 1: least blunted by or stunted I guess both by you know,
Speaker 1: these other things going on. It's just it's it's a
Speaker 1: staggering problem. This um, the plastics that they use, I
Speaker 1: mean back in the day, they used to actually not
Speaker 1: even that long ago. Nets were made of things that
Speaker 1: would biodegrade, like sometimes they were cotton or hemp um.
Speaker 1: And now you know, as we quote advance unquote with synthetics,
Speaker 1: they have these plastics that these things could be out
Speaker 1: there for five or six hundred years. Yeah, and when
Speaker 1: they if they do break up, then the animals eat
Speaker 1: that stuff and die. Yeah. Do you remember our great
Speaker 1: Pacific garbage patch episode from years and years ago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that factors in for sure. Yeah. Well, so a lot
Speaker 1: of this stuff goes and and is attracted to that
Speaker 1: those huge gyres out there in the ocean. And we
Speaker 1: talked about in in that episode about how plastic photo
Speaker 1: degrades when it's just out there in the sun. The
Speaker 1: motion of ocean currents combined with the sun photo degrading it.
Speaker 1: It breaks it down into smaller and smaller bits that
Speaker 1: become part of the food chain, which is not good.
Speaker 1: You don't want your food chade eating petroleum based plastics.
Speaker 1: And that's what commercial fishing gear is made out of,
Speaker 1: which again that's why it lasts so long, hundreds of
Speaker 1: years um, which is what you want. You want something
Speaker 1: very durable in your fishing gear. But when it gets loose,
Speaker 1: it's a big problem. And like you said, it's a
Speaker 1: early recent problem too, because it wasn't that long ago
Speaker 1: like that people were using nets that degraded a lot,
Speaker 1: a lot easier. Yeah, I mean it says, uh, it
Speaker 1: says in here. I'm not sure where you source this,
Speaker 1: but fifty or sixty years ago. So in the history
Speaker 1: of fishing, this, this synthetic netting is pretty new. Um.
Speaker 1: And this isn't just like and we're gonna talk a
Speaker 1: lot about animals, because that's sort of the main problem,
Speaker 1: but um, it's an issue to the industry to like
Speaker 1: it says right here that here in the US, they've
Speaker 1: estimated that uh, one single ghost net that's lost or
Speaker 1: discarded or whatever can kill almost twenty dollars worth of
Speaker 1: dungeness crab over a ten year span. That's just one net, right,
Speaker 1: And then there's like you could buy you could buy
Speaker 1: seven that amount of money. I knew you'd get some
Speaker 1: comedy in there. Uh. And then there are you know,
Speaker 1: the small vessels, uh, small and even larger vessels that
Speaker 1: can get tangled the stuff. They're divers that can't navigate
Speaker 1: through the stuff, so there is a bit of a
Speaker 1: human impact as well. Um. I think we should take
Speaker 1: a break though, because I'm getting hot under the collar, Okay,
Speaker 1: and we'll come back and talk about more of this
Speaker 1: stuff right after this. Alright, chuck. So we've we've kind
Speaker 1: of given a good overview. But let's get into just
Speaker 1: how fishing gear could kill marine animals. And there's there's
Speaker 1: a number of different ways and it kind of depends
Speaker 1: on the animal. So to start off with, um, we
Speaker 1: mentioned how a seat turtle might be like, oh, what's
Speaker 1: what's on the other side of this loop? Danger? Right? Um?
Speaker 1: Young seal pups might be doing the same thing. There's
Speaker 1: a very famous picture of a turtle with a six
Speaker 1: pack ring. Yeah, man, and its shell is normal size
Speaker 1: on either side of the six pack ring. But then
Speaker 1: it looks like it's one of those waste trainers people
Speaker 1: who have have worn a corset for ten years. It's
Speaker 1: basically the same thing that nylon. That's exactly what this
Speaker 1: commercial fishing gear is made out of. It's made out
Speaker 1: of plastic nylon or nilon plastic, and um, it holds
Speaker 1: fast and when it when a turtle gets stuck in
Speaker 1: it or gets it stuck around them when they're young,
Speaker 1: as they grow it. Basically they have to grow around
Speaker 1: this thing. And it's not good. It's not good for
Speaker 1: your physiology, it's not good for locomotion. You're going to
Speaker 1: be a stunted little turtle when you grow up like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they I think you mentioned obviously marine mammals that need
Speaker 1: to surface. Um, they could die within minutes just because
Speaker 1: they're simply trapped. They can be affixiated through like immediately
Speaker 1: like that, or through you know, over the course of
Speaker 1: months and years die slow, awful, more awful deaths. Uh.
Speaker 1: They can prevent them from feeding, like like you said,
Speaker 1: if something gets wrapped around their mouth and they literally
Speaker 1: just can't open their mouth, they will starve to death
Speaker 1: or locomotion can be affected too, right, So if you
Speaker 1: are a slow turtle, yeah, you're gonna have trouble going
Speaker 1: after food. Um, and you may starve to death like
Speaker 1: that as well. Yeah, or you know, swimming circles for
Speaker 1: the rest of your life because like one side of
Speaker 1: your body is entangled, right. Um, so you said there
Speaker 1: there you can kind of break down the manner of
Speaker 1: death into acute or chronic One of the sad chronic
Speaker 1: ones that got me was from towing. Right. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: let's say you're a whale, your decent size mammal, thank you,
Speaker 1: you're swimming, you're swimming along, and you get a net
Speaker 1: stuck on you, like hell fast, You're stuck. You could
Speaker 1: still conceivably swim along for a while, for a very
Speaker 1: long while, but now you have basically what amounts to
Speaker 1: an extra appendage, a ghost net dragging from you. That's
Speaker 1: bad enough as it is, because these nets are enormous.
Speaker 1: Like I was reading about tuna nets. Some tuna fishers
Speaker 1: use these nets that fall like seven hundred feet deep
Speaker 1: and are a mile wide. So you get a segment
Speaker 1: of that, even just a segment of what are those
Speaker 1: nets on you? It's going to drag you down, make
Speaker 1: it harder for you to just move normally. But then
Speaker 1: on top of that, that net is probably going to
Speaker 1: catch other animals over time, So not only are you
Speaker 1: dragging this net, you're also dragging all the animals who
Speaker 1: have been caught in that same net, and um have
Speaker 1: probably died. And then eventually you're just going to not
Speaker 1: be able to keep up any longer, and you you do,
Speaker 1: you drown. Yeah, like I can't imagine a lot of
Speaker 1: things more just shameful for for humans than seeing a
Speaker 1: blue whale dragging a hundred foot net full of dead
Speaker 1: sea animals behind it until it dies. It's pretty bad.
Speaker 1: Like I couldn't even have conceived of something that awful
Speaker 1: until I've learned about the stuff. It's last word is
Speaker 1: why serious? Um? I know this is not a it's
Speaker 1: not a happy episode. It's not. It's and the other
Speaker 1: problem is it's I think this is one reason a
Speaker 1: lot of people haven't heard of this too. It's like,
Speaker 1: how many more problems can we have to deal with?
Speaker 1: It's just add one more to the pile, and it
Speaker 1: makes it really hard not to just get like like
Speaker 1: catastrophe fatigued. You know, but you just you can't. You can't.
Speaker 1: You can't do that. You can't let it happen. You
Speaker 1: gotta go take a break, shake it off, and come
Speaker 1: back at it with with vigor, or you need to
Speaker 1: say this one, this one means something to me so
Speaker 1: much so that I'm actually going to do something about this.
Speaker 1: I'm not just gonna like click my tongue and shake
Speaker 1: my head and keep scrolling through my Twitter feed. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do something about this. No matter whether it's dealing
Speaker 1: with ghost fishing or dealing with climate change or whatever
Speaker 1: strikes you in that way, go after it. And that's
Speaker 1: that's probably the best thing you can do that rather
Speaker 1: than trying to take on everything at once. I totally agree, man.
Speaker 1: And I also uh poo poo the idea that like, well,
Speaker 1: you can't say this is bad when you still do this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: though it can all be bad. Yeah, And like you
Speaker 1: can't not everyone can tackle everything. So if you want
Speaker 1: to be an advocate for for dogs on the street
Speaker 1: and go do that, um, because the obvious thing would
Speaker 1: be for people say well, don't eat fish, don't support
Speaker 1: the industry, right, and like how can you eat How
Speaker 1: can you be a dog advocate and still eat fish?
Speaker 1: Are you going on? You're worse than Hitler? But I say, like,
Speaker 1: find whatever is meaningful to you and try and affect
Speaker 1: change there as best you can. Yeah, but you know,
Speaker 1: and then you can say I spent every weekend for
Speaker 1: the last year cleaning up ghost fishing nets and saving
Speaker 1: seal pups. What did you do, judge? Uh, so, how
Speaker 1: does this happen? I think that's an enough Like we've
Speaker 1: hit people over the head pretty hard with this stuff.
Speaker 1: Are you sure? I think, I mean, there'll be some
Speaker 1: more stats in here, but I think they get the point. Um,
Speaker 1: how does this stuff happen? Uh? And I'm and I'm
Speaker 1: asking us both And I'll go ahead and say one
Speaker 1: thing is sometimes it's accidental. Sometimes there's bad weather, um,
Speaker 1: and you you have to abandon your gear. Yeah. There
Speaker 1: was a two thousand nine UM United Nations Food and
Speaker 1: Agriculture Organization report that found that most ghost fishing gear
Speaker 1: is not intentionally discarded, that most of it is accidentally lost, right,
Speaker 1: which is good that that makes you feel a little better.
Speaker 1: And it's not just fisherman don't like who ca yeah
Speaker 1: see you in hell see, but that that also does happen.
Speaker 1: It does sadly, it's nice to know that that's not
Speaker 1: the bulk of it, right, So that when it's unintentional,
Speaker 1: when it's accidental or something like that. In active nature,
Speaker 1: a lot of times it's just um, severe weather, like
Speaker 1: a big storm comes up and just breaks your lines
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden all of your nets are lost.
Speaker 1: And believe me, if you're a commercial fisherman, that is
Speaker 1: about the worst thing that can happen to you short
Speaker 1: of sinking while you're out, you know, especially if your
Speaker 1: net was already full and you're reeling it in and
Speaker 1: you lost it because of nature. Um, that's that's that's
Speaker 1: bad for everybody. Another thing that can happen is and
Speaker 1: this is one of the bad ones. You could be
Speaker 1: have elite a gear, or be fishing illegally, maybe using
Speaker 1: a method you shouldn't or in a place you shouldn't be,
Speaker 1: and you, uh, there's what's called enforcement pressure, and you
Speaker 1: abandon your gear because you don't want to get in trouble. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there basically just kind of whistle like I wasn't doing anything. Um.
Speaker 1: There's also what they call spatial pressure, where if you
Speaker 1: have some nets floating along and another boat comes into
Speaker 1: the area, doesn't see it, and runs over them, basically
Speaker 1: cut some loose from their moorings. Then that has just
Speaker 1: become ghost fishing gear itself. Yeah. The economic pressure I
Speaker 1: don't fully get this. What I would imagine that could
Speaker 1: mean is, you know, it would cost us more to
Speaker 1: go out and retrieve these things than to just go
Speaker 1: back to port and get these guys off the clock.
Speaker 1: That's part of it. That is definitely part of it,
Speaker 1: I think, like if you're I think more often than not,
Speaker 1: is if your gear is all torn up or whatever,
Speaker 1: and if you take it back to port and you're
Speaker 1: charged a fee for dumping it because it's considered waste,
Speaker 1: Like I think that's that's how it's treated in the Netherlands.
Speaker 1: It makes more sense for you just litter if you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to pay to have it disposed of properly,
Speaker 1: the well the sea can take it. I'll just cut
Speaker 1: it loose and look the other way and go back
Speaker 1: home and say, what fishing gear. I don't have anything
Speaker 1: to throw away. So that's economic pressure. And to me,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about later. That is the key dissolving ghosts
Speaker 1: fishing if you ask me, Yeah, and real quickly, like
Speaker 1: I don't think we said for sure, it's not always
Speaker 1: just nets um like crab pots and traps and nets
Speaker 1: for sure, fishing line, hooks, rope. And the one that
Speaker 1: really chase me is packing bands. So these bands around
Speaker 1: bait boxes and stuff, those are clearly just dumped. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: they just tossed it over the side. Yeah, And that's
Speaker 1: actually in violation of a United Nations UM convention from
Speaker 1: y three that basically was looking to stop pollution from
Speaker 1: ships and um, you're not supposed to throw anything over
Speaker 1: the side, from those packing bands to cooking oil that
Speaker 1: you fried your French fries in. Like, nothing is supposed
Speaker 1: to go over the side except possibly fishing trails from
Speaker 1: cleaning fish. It's called the Don't be a Huge Jerk Convention. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of ninety that was a heck of a convention. Uh
Speaker 1: so some of the indirect it was, wasn't it. It's
Speaker 1: basically like a Max Funcan convention. I remember that and
Speaker 1: Fred Rogers that was the keynote speaker. It's pretty great. Uh.
Speaker 1: Some of the indirect causes and we'll see here in
Speaker 1: a bit. One of the biggest, biggest problems is, like
Speaker 1: you said, when you come back in with maybe unwanted
Speaker 1: fishing gear and there's a where to dispose of it. Um,
Speaker 1: just simply a lack of these facilities at port uh
Speaker 1: is a big, big problem. Yeah, And that could is
Speaker 1: that what you said could fix at all, no putting making,
Speaker 1: changing it from being an economic burden economic incentive to
Speaker 1: bring in your old fishing gear. I think that will
Speaker 1: change it. But that's what you just said is a
Speaker 1: huge part of that you need to have places for
Speaker 1: people that either take it and get money in exchange
Speaker 1: for their old stuff, or at the very least just
Speaker 1: throw it in a bin somewhere and not get charged
Speaker 1: for it. Yeah, exactly, because you know, if you if
Speaker 1: you know that you can just throw it away right
Speaker 1: when you get to shore, it's only going to take
Speaker 1: up that space on your way back in. Um, there's
Speaker 1: a pretty good chance that you're not going to litter
Speaker 1: a mile wide net, you know, especially and especially if
Speaker 1: you can get money for it. Yeah. And another one
Speaker 1: of the big problems here, uh, in this one article
Speaker 1: you sent was it's I think you know these these
Speaker 1: commercial fishermen are I used to watch Deadliest Catch. I
Speaker 1: know how these guys are. Uh. They're notoriously stubborn about
Speaker 1: new uh technologies, or ironically, it wouldn't be a new
Speaker 1: technology if they tried to go back to biodegradable nets.
Speaker 1: But just convincing these uh these men and women too
Speaker 1: add extra expense or add an extra trip to buy
Speaker 1: something that will help the the environment. It's a hard sell,
Speaker 1: even though, like dudes, you're costing yourself crab money, because
Speaker 1: like twenty grand one lost net can cost twenty dollars
Speaker 1: with a crab over ten years. I think they live
Speaker 1: more in the trip to trip mindset. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: think that their industry as a whole thinks of it
Speaker 1: as like the over ten year kind of thing. And
Speaker 1: so from what I understand, the industry is kind of
Speaker 1: woken up to this a little more are and it's
Speaker 1: starting to take measures a little bit. And we'll talk
Speaker 1: about that. But um, yeah, it's it's entirely possible that
Speaker 1: individual fishermen are just kind of like this is not
Speaker 1: worth it. Yeah. This one quote in here really kind
Speaker 1: of drives at home. And I've never heard of the
Speaker 1: phrase tragedy of the commons, um, but I like it.
Speaker 1: It says, as as with so many tragedy of the
Speaker 1: common scenarios, the responsibility to actialize with everyone and the
Speaker 1: incentive with no one, and that kind of drives at home.
Speaker 1: There's no like, you know, a lot of times are
Speaker 1: international waters there. I know, when they have made inroads
Speaker 1: with some of these big commercial companies, they're a little
Speaker 1: hesitant to get too involved because all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: there name is printed in an article. Even if they're
Speaker 1: trying to do the right thing, just being associated with
Speaker 1: this stuff. They don't even want, you know, even if
Speaker 1: they're trying to help out a little bit. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: again it's just one more problem. More morris, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like if a company stood up and said so and
Speaker 1: so company is is making an effort to, uh, now
Speaker 1: do this, then the flip side is like, well, what
Speaker 1: have you been doing? That's true? Why did it take
Speaker 1: this long? Yeah, that's definitely true. And so companies a
Speaker 1: little reticent to even get involved, you know. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I think um, as of two thousand and fifteen, there
Speaker 1: is a kind of a new initiative that started that's
Speaker 1: that's bringing more people into the fold and making it
Speaker 1: safe to join up. I remember what it was a
Speaker 1: man that was a McDonald's something I can't remember now, pizza.
Speaker 1: It was some new sandwich or something that said it's
Speaker 1: like now made with like real chicken or something like that.
Speaker 1: And that was like you put that on a sign
Speaker 1: because everyone that saw that was like, what was I
Speaker 1: eating for the past thirty years? No, with ingredients that
Speaker 1: may not kill you. Um, let's take another break and
Speaker 1: then we'll come back. We'll we'll take a quick trip
Speaker 1: around the world and then we'll talk about what some
Speaker 1: people are doing to combat ghost fish. Yeah, litt bit
Speaker 1: of good news. Okay, alright, chuck, we're back and we're
Speaker 1: in the home stretch. We're gonna solve this problem. But first,
Speaker 1: let's go shame different parts of the world. Yes, let's uh,
Speaker 1: how about we step onto my little dinghy and um
Speaker 1: take a trip around the world. Okay, we'll take us
Speaker 1: a while because my little dingy is slow, but we'll
Speaker 1: get there eventually. Let's head to the Northeast Atlantic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're we already talked about the thousand nets that are
Speaker 1: tossed in there every year. All right, we've already been there,
Speaker 1: and so I just wasted our three months getting there. Apologies.
Speaker 1: All right, so we're stuck in the Northeast Atlantic. I apologize.
Speaker 1: It's now going to take us six months to navigate,
Speaker 1: uh through the midwest of the United States, through Nebraska
Speaker 1: and Kansas in our boat. Maybe we should wear portaging
Speaker 1: that's along boardage all the way to the northeast Pacific. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in Washington State, Well that would be northwest, well, northeast
Speaker 1: Pacific Ocean. I guess northwest US, but yeah, northeast Pacific.
Speaker 1: So Washington State has oh, man, we already talked about this.
Speaker 1: To remember, out of eight hundred and seventy gill nets
Speaker 1: they rescued or they found, thirty, man, we we already
Speaker 1: made it here. I hate backtracking, all right, carry you back, um,
Speaker 1: all right, let's go to the northwest Atlantic, all right,
Speaker 1: and we surely we haven't been there. I don't believe
Speaker 1: we have the Gulf of St. Lawrence, for God's sake,
Speaker 1: No we haven't. Okay, snow crab, this is one snow
Speaker 1: crab fishery. Um, they lose about eight hundred traps a
Speaker 1: year in this one fishery. And uh, some say that
Speaker 1: each fisher like each boat may lose up to in
Speaker 1: a year of their traps. And this is an old like,
Speaker 1: this isn't an old fish tale. That's the National Oceanic
Speaker 1: and Atmosphere Administration's just speak Bay Office saying an old
Speaker 1: fish tale. Yeah, this isn't Finding Dory. I never saw
Speaker 1: that one, but I did like, Um, what was it? Nemo?
Speaker 1: I think, right, I haven't seen either one of them.
Speaker 1: Oh you haven't seen Finding Nemo. No, we'll save it,
Speaker 1: save it. Well, Emily doesn't like any of those movies ever,
Speaker 1: So yeah, because every one of them has some sort
Speaker 1: of sad death like she got after Bamby when she
Speaker 1: was a kid. She's like, I'm done. Yeah this one,
Speaker 1: this one has that too. Yeah, most of them do.
Speaker 1: And I said, that's a significant reason it's a good movie.
Speaker 1: Well that's why. I mean, that's the theory is that
Speaker 1: that's why they do that, is to kind of teach
Speaker 1: kids about death. Sure, because I mean it's so sanitized
Speaker 1: and like kept out of sight in our society. That's
Speaker 1: a good service, all right, finding Nemos on the list,
Speaker 1: then yeah, you'll like it. You won't regret seeing where
Speaker 1: should uh? Southwest Southeast Asia? Um, well, the Arabian Sea.
Speaker 1: Let's make a little stop over there. They actually they're
Speaker 1: all woke over there. They figured out that they're people
Speaker 1: were losing back in two thousand two about two hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty thousand traps per year. Yeah, which is a
Speaker 1: problem not just for like say the lobster or crab
Speaker 1: or shrimp that they're intended for. They, um, they there's
Speaker 1: a lot of by catch that, say, like a lobster
Speaker 1: trap can catch as well, like fish can make their
Speaker 1: way in there too. So you've got two hundred sixty
Speaker 1: thousand traps just floating around, no longer providing any seafood
Speaker 1: for anybody. They're just death traps, literal death traps. That's
Speaker 1: a problem. And so the United Arab Emirates UM ruled
Speaker 1: that you had to put a biodegradable like face or
Speaker 1: panel on the traps from from that point, not from
Speaker 1: two to one. So eventually they were just open. Yeah,
Speaker 1: eventually that one, that one fish that came in last
Speaker 1: would be freed, while the other ones are like UH,
Speaker 1: in the Caribbean Gulf of Mexico, this pretty staggering around
Speaker 1: UH Guadalupe. UH, they lose about half of their traps
Speaker 1: every year during hurricane season yea, which is about twenty traps. Yeah,
Speaker 1: half man, that's crazy. And then in UH Louisiana alone,
Speaker 1: they think that they lose four to ten million blue
Speaker 1: crabs lost to their traps. Just in Louisiana, four to
Speaker 1: ten million blue crabs lost. All right, So this has
Speaker 1: all been super depressing. UM. What can be done about it?
Speaker 1: People are are trying to take action. There was an
Speaker 1: UH an initiative in London founded by the World Animal
Speaker 1: Protection It's an ng O UH and the Global Ghost
Speaker 1: Gear Initiative it's pretty cool name. Uh. And here's the deal. Like, Sadly,
Speaker 1: when you're first getting efforts like this going, a lot
Speaker 1: of this stuff that they're doing is like simply gathering
Speaker 1: data because it's hard to get support because people say, well,
Speaker 1: what's the data, what's it looking like? And if you say, well,
Speaker 1: we don't really have great data yet, then they're kind
Speaker 1: of grounded. So yeah, so the very first steps, um
Speaker 1: is evidence building and reviewing policies and kind of not
Speaker 1: rubber meets the road kind of things. But unfortunately those
Speaker 1: have to be the first steps, right. But are they're
Speaker 1: starting to gather data from some of the rubber meets
Speaker 1: the road stuff. Um. So like if we can go
Speaker 1: back over to the Pacific northwest right to the northeast Atlantic. Um.
Speaker 1: I think there's like a little pilot program in Washington State,
Speaker 1: uh to like clean up ghost fishing stuff and and
Speaker 1: from I think two thousand ten, um, oh, no, two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven they were they recovered four eighty one
Speaker 1: lost gill nets. Right, so this kind of stuff where
Speaker 1: you've got people, I think they they had like a
Speaker 1: few million dollars from the government and just started a program. Um,
Speaker 1: when you've got people doing these things, and then you
Speaker 1: have a central organization like the Global Ghost Gear Initiative,
Speaker 1: then the gears start moving, the wheels start moving, like
Speaker 1: things start happening, because then you start to generate the data,
Speaker 1: and then you can start to make the press releases.
Speaker 1: Then you can start to like get the the public
Speaker 1: aware of this kind of thing, and then you get
Speaker 1: pressure on industry and then industry shapes up. Yeah. Here's
Speaker 1: one of my favorite things too, and this is not
Speaker 1: just for this industry and this problem, but one of
Speaker 1: my favorite favorite things in the world is when someone
Speaker 1: comes along and says, hey, I'll take that waste product
Speaker 1: you have because I can use it. That's what I'm
Speaker 1: saying is going to be the key. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: And this is already happening a little bit because like
Speaker 1: a lot of things, you can generate power through some
Speaker 1: of this stuff. So that's one way that I think
Speaker 1: there's a company called networks. It's a like an organ
Speaker 1: or it's like there's a few companies that came together
Speaker 1: to to make networks. I think, well, in their case,
Speaker 1: I don't think they're turning into energy, but they're turning, uh,
Speaker 1: fishing nets into carpet tiles, carpet tiles, boom great. Right,
Speaker 1: there is a one called fishing for energy that's like no, uh,
Speaker 1: Covanta Energy, right, and then of course Schnitzer Steel the
Speaker 1: face of ghost Gear. They they all came together and
Speaker 1: started putting UM gear recycling outposts and I think eleven states,
Speaker 1: all over the place, all over the coasts of eleven states,
Speaker 1: so that when fishermen come in, whether you're just a
Speaker 1: little solo person and you've got some monofilament line left over,
Speaker 1: or you're a commercial guy, you can just throw your
Speaker 1: old gear in here and it gets recycled, right. And
Speaker 1: then they take it, and I think Schnitzer Steel UM
Speaker 1: takes it and get strips all the metal from it
Speaker 1: for recycling, and then what's left goes to Covanta Energy
Speaker 1: and they turn it into energy. I looked high and
Speaker 1: low to exactly how they do that, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: find it. So it makes me a little nervous about
Speaker 1: what they're doing to turn this into energy. But they
Speaker 1: supposedly have created enough energy from the stuff that they've
Speaker 1: um that's been recycled to power like homes for a month.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. Yeah, And I mean this is this is
Speaker 1: stuff that otherwise would have just gone out stayed out
Speaker 1: in the sea and drowned whales and and turtles. You
Speaker 1: like skateboarding, Sure, there's a sustainable skateboard retailer name b
Speaker 1: u r e oh Bureo and they are turning uh,
Speaker 1: fishing nets into skateboards. Like how cool is that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Just pretty cool because they're actually buying fishing net from fishermen.
Speaker 1: Like there they use stuff, so they're giving money for
Speaker 1: it and then they're turning around and using it to recycle.
Speaker 1: It's pretty cool. And then there's there's a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff you could do if you if you don't have
Speaker 1: a skateboard company or you're not an energy company. Um.
Speaker 1: There's a group called ghost Fishing and they Um, I
Speaker 1: think that's what they're called, right, ghost fishing. I'm not
Speaker 1: it's just goes. I think it's just goes fishing anyway. Um.
Speaker 1: They yeah, they're they're group of divers. They were wreck
Speaker 1: divers in the North Sea. I think they're originally based
Speaker 1: maybe in the Netherlands. Um, and they noticed on these
Speaker 1: wrecks that like there was tons of like ghost gear.
Speaker 1: Apparently it's a big problem with shipwrecks, so that's why
Speaker 1: it's kind of dangerous for humans, and then also gets
Speaker 1: caught up on coral and stuff too, so they started
Speaker 1: cleaning up. They took it upon themselves and start cleaning
Speaker 1: up some of these wrecks. And then little by little,
Speaker 1: this little group of like friends that were you know,
Speaker 1: wreck divers that started cleaning it up, started making connections
Speaker 1: with other groups of divers all around the world. And
Speaker 1: now all of a sudden, the Ghost Fishing I think
Speaker 1: Ghost Fishing Alliance or Initiative is um. This this multinational
Speaker 1: network of people who love scuba diving and who spend
Speaker 1: some of their scuba diving time cleaning up ghost nets.
Speaker 1: And there's actually pictures of these people like freeing seal
Speaker 1: pups from ghost fishing nets. You know, it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Like if you're into scuba diving, there's something you can
Speaker 1: do right there. Yeah, imagine there are not many better
Speaker 1: sleeps at night you can get than having spent your
Speaker 1: day free and seal pups. You probably sleep pretty well. Uh.
Speaker 1: In Australia, we can't leave you out. There are a
Speaker 1: couple of cool things going on there. Um. There's a
Speaker 1: program called or a group called ghost nets Australia and
Speaker 1: they've been partnering with indigenous groups to basically help cleaning
Speaker 1: up you know, this stuff in individual areas. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then there's another fishery, Like we kind of have been
Speaker 1: picking on the fisheries and some of these companies, but um,
Speaker 1: some are getting on board. There's one in Australia called
Speaker 1: the Northern Prawn Fishery, So definitely give them your support
Speaker 1: if you live there. Uh. They're working with the World
Speaker 1: Animal Protection Group two. UH. They report sightings, they report
Speaker 1: ghost gear locations basically like here's where it is at
Speaker 1: least and sometimes they're even involved in retrieving some of
Speaker 1: this stuff and setting some of these animals free they
Speaker 1: come across it. Yeah, I think that's like, that's part
Speaker 1: of it. You know, there's there's you gotta have the
Speaker 1: government involved to set up you know, recycling stations or whatever,
Speaker 1: to fund pilot programs to get the data going. But
Speaker 1: and then with industry, you have to educate industry, you
Speaker 1: have to give them financial incentives to keep their nets
Speaker 1: bringing to bring them back ashore. And then because they're
Speaker 1: also the ones who are out there in the sea
Speaker 1: to too to make it so that it's a it's
Speaker 1: it's they have incentive to stop in and take in
Speaker 1: ghost gear when they see it. And part of that
Speaker 1: is like what just happened for North pron Fishery. They
Speaker 1: just got free advertisement for being the good guys because
Speaker 1: they got involved. So good, I think we just solved
Speaker 1: the problem. I'll give you another shout out to There's
Speaker 1: a brewery from del Rey, Florida, Delray Beach, Florida called
Speaker 1: Saltwater Brewery, and they made some news recently because they
Speaker 1: debuted a six pack ring that is made um to
Speaker 1: bio degrade and it's also edible, So rather than growing
Speaker 1: around a turtle or keeping a turtle from growing correctly,
Speaker 1: a turtle can actually eat the six pack ring when
Speaker 1: it encounters it, if it makes it into the the wall. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: a lot of the crapperies don't even use the rings anymore.
Speaker 1: They have the recycled plastic kind of lead things. You know,
Speaker 1: good at job, you have me at brewery. Uh. If
Speaker 1: you want to know more about ghost fishing or ghost gear,
Speaker 1: you can type those words into your favorite search bar,
Speaker 1: uh and it will bring up some pretty good stuff.
Speaker 1: And since I said stuff, it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this one a T shirt ideas and
Speaker 1: an email from a dude that has kind of kept
Speaker 1: up with our T shirt names and he wants us
Speaker 1: to pick h all three of us to each pick
Speaker 1: our favorite. Okay, that would be Jerry, Jerry, you just
Speaker 1: knock like a horse on the ground when I get
Speaker 1: to a T shirt you like, Hey, guys, love your
Speaker 1: show and your tangents are hilarious, But it really cracks
Speaker 1: me up are all the funny band names and T
Speaker 1: shirt ideas you come up with. I collected a few
Speaker 1: of my favorites over the years, and the time has come.
Speaker 1: I mean to turn a few of these T shirt
Speaker 1: dreams into realities, going to design and print a few
Speaker 1: T shirts. But my problem is I can't decide which
Speaker 1: phrases to use. So if you could each pick one,
Speaker 1: it would really make my day. And there are twelve,
Speaker 1: so starting with number one, trusses rock exclamation point, friends,
Speaker 1: don't let friends at your candle. That's actually Emily has
Speaker 1: that shirt. So that's the thing. Okay, I think some
Speaker 1: one might have sent us send that in actually, ok yeah,
Speaker 1: because that's happened from time to time, Like we got
Speaker 1: um Mike's on pants off t shirt. Yeah. Uh number three,
Speaker 1: if you have a beacon, a probe, and a shovel,
Speaker 1: you could be Okay. I don't even know if that
Speaker 1: one run well. He tied them to the episodes, but um,
Speaker 1: for brevity, I'm just gonna read these. Mystery is weird.
Speaker 1: I like that one. Not too bad to each their own.
Speaker 1: It seems a little snotty these days to have that
Speaker 1: like on a shirt. Yeah yeah whatever, Uh Master of
Speaker 1: Jamment that maybe mine is that? I think so so far.
Speaker 1: Mine is Mystery is weird. I listened to the Tick episode.
Speaker 1: I do remember that that's for everybody. This one's pretty good.
Speaker 1: Find your own butter. Jerry just knocked on the floor. Okay,
Speaker 1: there's Cherry I Viking boy. That's an old one, natural selection, Colin,
Speaker 1: it just makes sense. Yeah, that's a good one, a
Speaker 1: little preachy. Um, don't scrutinize me. It's aggressive and finally,
Speaker 1: less wash our hands as often as possible. M That
Speaker 1: mine is Mine's definitely mystery is weird? Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go with Master of Enjama and Jerry definitely likes find
Speaker 1: your own butter. Okay. In fact, I think Jerry said
Speaker 1: that to me in this office. Who was that uh
Speaker 1: that wrote that in? That is from Steve Rickart in
Speaker 1: Grand Rapids, Michigan. Steve, and he said, if you send
Speaker 1: me your shirt sizes, I'll be sure to make an
Speaker 1: extra of each. So I'm an excel m you're probably
Speaker 1: a what large? Yeah? Man, I'm right on the border
Speaker 1: between like large being a little drapey and medium, like
Speaker 1: really showing off way too much. Tum. There's something in
Speaker 1: between medium and large. I guess large, Jerry, what are you?
Speaker 1: Jerry's a medium? Did she stamp that out? She did? Medium? Unisex,
Speaker 1: she said, uh. And then finally he closes with pps
Speaker 1: in a place in time where people with big platforms
Speaker 1: often use your voices to create division. So refreshing to
Speaker 1: listen to your show. I admire respect you show to
Speaker 1: all people and the ever you put into being inclusive
Speaker 1: and empathetic. Thank you, Steve. Yeah, thanks a lot, Steve.
Speaker 1: But hey, find your own butter. All right, everyone turn
Speaker 1: on Steve. Uh. If you want to be like Steve
Speaker 1: and just come up with a great email, well you
Speaker 1: can start by tweeting to us. If you don't like
Speaker 1: the email, I'm at Josh, Underscore, Um Underscore Clark. We're
Speaker 1: also at s Y s K Podcast. You can join
Speaker 1: us on Facebook at Charles W. Chuck Bryant or slash
Speaker 1: stuff you Should Know Either one of those two. You
Speaker 1: can send us all an email. The Stuff Podcast the
Speaker 1: House Touff works dot com and has always joined us
Speaker 1: at our home on the web. Stuff you Should Know
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