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Sea turtles have become collateral damage in the decades-long plundering of the oceans by the fishing industry, the results of a new study show.
Two-thirds, or 66.7 percent, of all turtle injuries or deaths documented in a 12-year period in the Maldives can be attributed to lost and discarded fishing gear, known as “ghost fishing nets,” marine conservationists have discovered.
According to analyzes by both the United Nations and the World Bank, more than 90 percent of global fish stocks are currently “fully exploited, overexploited or depleted.”
The $23.5 billion trade in illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing has caused much of the devastation, according to UN estimates.
“Sea turtles are a group of marine megafauna threatened with extinction by human activities,” said the authors of the new study, “primarily through interactions with the fishing industry, overexploitation and marine pollution.”
Nearly two-thirds of all turtle injuries or deaths documented in a 12-year period in the Maldives can be attributed to discarded fishing gear. Above, a green sea turtle carcass floats next to a piece of trash brought in by monsoon currents near Thailand on July 28, 2023
Above, a zoomed-in image of the green sea turtle carcass floating on July 28, 2023 next to a piece of trash carried by the monsoon currents to Maya Bay in Thailand.
According to UN estimates, the $23.5 billion illegal fishing trade has wreaked havoc on sea turtles worldwide. Above, a green sea turtle with an amputated fin rescued from entanglement at the Khor Kalba Conservation Reserve in the United Arab Emirates
The new research, published in the journal PLOS ONEis based on data collected by the Maldives Sea Turtle Conservation Program from 2010 to 2022 in the seas surrounding the Republic of Maldives, an archipelago southwest of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean.
In those years, local conservationists documented a total of 379 injured or dead turtles, with more than 75 percent of those cases, or 285 injured or killed turtles, due to human sources.
By far the most common cause of injury or death was entanglement in the waste of the fishing industry – with 66.7 percent or 253 of these turtles showing wounds suggestive of suffocation, constriction, scarring or other telltale evidence of entanglement in fishing nets or lines.
This figure included 215 turtles found entangled as well as another 38 corpses or near-dead turtles found floating or on the beach with the physical scars of a prolonged struggle to escape from dropped nets.
Those wounds included deep lacerations in 124 turtles, traumatic amputations in 58 turtles, head injuries in 38 turtles, and missing shells or shell fractures in some severely damaged cases.
But the situation in the Maldives, where such fishing practices have been aggressively banned, is unique, the researchers were quick to point out.
The country’s laws were designed to allow their seas to serve as a maritime haven from the brutality of the global fishing industry.
In the Maldives, where fishing practices that threaten marine ecosystems are actively banned, it is the remnants of these industrial fishing trawling practices, discarded gillnets, purse seine nets, longlines and traps that cause most turtle mortality.
By far the most common cause of turtle injury or death in the Maldives was entanglement in the waste from the fishing industry – with 66.7 percent or 253 of these turtles showing wounds suggestive of suffocation, constriction, scarring or other telltale evidence of entanglement
Local conservation groups identified 215 turtles found entangled, and another 38 corpses or near-dead turtles found floating or on the beach with the physical scars of a prolonged struggle to escape from a casting net. Those wounds included deep lacerations in 124 turtles, traumatic amputations in 58 turtles, head injuries in 38 turtles, and missing or broken shells
Above, a hawksbill turtle found on a beach in the United Arab Emirates, where an autopsy revealed mostly plastic debris. As much as 75% of all dead green turtles in that region had eaten waste from the fishing industry, including rope and nets, as well as plastic bags and bottle caps
“Bycatch,” the term for when fishing boats accidentally catch dolphins, turtles and other marine life during their massive indiscriminate trawling, “is recorded as a major cause of sea turtle morbidity and mortality in many regions,” the researchers report.
But in the Maldives, where the practice is actively banned, it is the remnants of these industrial fishing trawling practices, the discarded gillnets, purse seines, longlines and traps that cause the most mortality among local turtles.
“Most other studies examining the causes of sea turtle morbidity,” the authors noted, “report lower rates of entanglement.”
Thousands upon thousands of square miles of ‘ghost fishing net’ are cast adrift in the oceans each year, according to a recent study in the journal Science Advancesleaving unsuspecting marine life struggling to escape the mess of humanity.
Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing is not only one of the main causes of marine ecosystem destruction, This is reported by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nationsbut it is also one of the most lucrative.
Criminal fishing accounts for a full fifth, 20 percent, of total global fishing catch, says international agency estimates.
The $23.5 billion profit makes it the third most lucrative natural resource crime, after stolen timber and illegal mining.