What is Ghost Fishing?

us so you can explain why there's no love. Yeah, and everybody else, go to s y sk live dot com and buy your tickets now because they're going fast. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry your own rolling. Put three of us together, get us to talking. You got stuff you should know, and you have afternoon tea.

M I am having some tea right now. I see that. Yeah, it's um, what's that Tazo stuff with the passion fruit and you know hibiscus and everything. I think that's the Todso passion fruit hybiscus ta oh yeah that one is that buzz marketing yeah, well he buzz market for worse than t I guess maybe a local heroin dealer who who's puts fent and all in it without telling you. Yeah,

that about Jimmy on the corner. Right. We should probably not talk too much about heroin though, Chuck, because I'll bet you this episode gets played in a decent amount of like middle schools. Yeah, and I'm glad we got in a couple of jokes early on, because, um, I think ghost fishing will rank alongside like the MS Show and the HIV shows as the least funny things to talk about. Yeah, it is pretty sad, actually, and I want to actually find ways for humor. And I was like,

this is really awful and sad. Well, we'll just take our usual tech where if it if it ears its head, well we'll jump on it and shake it around and hold it up for everybody to see. Yeah, I think that's what we do. I think one of the things that was most depression depression, uh depressing to me was the I didn't know about all this and then I'm like in the mid forties and I'm just learning about this. Well, you know how we learned about it. You remember first

hearing about this. We got an email from and I feel like such a heel. We got an email from a class, like a group um in a class. I want to say. It was probably a middle school class who had done a project on ghost fishing, and they said, you know who would want to do an episode on this is Josh and Chuck. So they're the ones who brought this to our attention. And I cannot find the email. It's gone. So I'm very sorry group from class that

I can no longer identify. But you guys, if you rode in to tell us to do an episode about ghost fishing and gave us some sources to start with, you're the only ones who so we're talking about you. I think it was Mrs Bailey's oceanography class. That's right at uh Sherman Hemsley Middle School and round Rock, Texas. Man, that show, Amen, was all right. I never watched that. Oh you didn't know? It was pretty good. I mean it was just basically George Jefferson as a preacher, yeah,

which is great. Yeah, you could watch him do anything, you know, George Jefferson as a garbage man, George Jefferson as the president, George Jefferson is rescuing sea turtles for ghost fishing? Is he still with us? I don't know? All right, so um, we should This is definitely one of the ones we should not just start talking about without defining it. First. Most people don't know what ghost

fishing is. Yeah, And sadly, like you said before we hit record, Jerry, uh always asked us what we're doing today, and you said, ghost fishing. What sounds a lot cooler than it is when I when you sent it over, I was like, oh, ghost fishing, that sounds really neat, but it's no, there's nothing neat about it. No, no, but it does have a cool name. Agreed. Yeah, technically the definition is called abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gear a l d f G. And what this is is

professional commercial fishing gear. Uh. And I'm sure there's a small amount of recreational fishing gear, but that's not the real issue. But commercial fishing gear that has been left out to see that then goes on to just kill and maim sea life for hundreds of years. Yeah, it's it's awful. Yeah, And it's a real, really big problem. Like just to give one example, will kind of go around the world a little bit later, but just in the northeast Atlantic Um there they found in one fishery.

So if you if you look at a c that in a higher seas going to have like different fisheries, different areas where they're like lots of fish. Typically in just one of those little spots in one sea in the world, they found something like five thousand nets. But this is what they estimated, nets totaling about twelve hundred and fifty kilometers in length that were lost every year, every year. So I want to put that into scale, right, I did a little Google mapping. Kilometers will get you

from New York to Chicago. It will be yeah, like a hundred million. Um. It will get you from Brisbane to Canberra. I don't know where that second place is there, so they're both in Australia. And then it will also get you a little under a round trip between London, London and Edinburgh. Yeah, so it's a that's a lot of netting and that's just was lost in that one fishery every year. Yeah, we might as well just throw out a few of these because this is gonna be

a lot of staggering stats. Uh. The U N Environmental Program UNIP and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations Nations. And this is a conservative estimate. They said that six hundred and forty thousand tons a fishing gear or left in the oceans each year. Yeah. I did another a little bit of more googling. You're ready, okay?

That that is equal to five hundred and fifty six thousand, five hundred and twenty one Ford Fiestas just dumped in the ocean every year by way out Ford Fiesta's just to sully their name. I don't know, because I mean four Fista is a well selling car all around the world, so everybody knows what a Ford Fiesta looks like. I probably couldn't pick one out on the road, but sure you could too. You would just know intuitively that that's a Ford Fiesta. Uh. Here's another example, UM, Washington State

right here in the United States. UM, they did a little clean up job there recently. And we'll get to the cleanup efforts because it is happening on a smaller scale, hopefully increasing. But in this one area they got, uh they wrangled eight hundred and seventy ghost nets, UM, and that contained more than thirty two thousand marine animals. Yeah, and this is just in one part of Washington State. And and if you say, well, who cares about marine animals, well,

everything that included five hundred birds and mammals. Yeah, and we're talking like like big big males, like whales. This affects everything from whales on down to little tiny fish. These things are just out there floating around. They get loose um one way or another, and they just float through the oceans and they can travel very very long distance is and along the way, animals get trapped at them. I mean, the whole point of commercial fishing gear is

to trap animals. The problem is is when you when they're operating correctly, they're reeled in and they bring the animals with them and then people eat them and you can have issues with that or whatever, but at least they're not just completely going to waste, which is the problem with ghost fishing. These things are like floating little

islands of death that trapped all manner of sea life. Um. And then they just die one way or another, either very quickly depending on whether they need to breathe like their marine mammal and they can't surface or there um. A sea turtle that um that that can't feed any longer because it's it's got a net growing around its mouth because it stuck its head through a loop when it was a juvenile, Yeah, and said, oh what's in there that looks neat? Let me stick my face in it.

And now I have a net, and then I grow bigger in the net stays there, uh and potentially cuts into my skin and becomes a part of me like little turn Old mothers tell their turtle babies this, like, don't put your head through a loops, just like they human mothers tell their kids. Don't stick your arm out of a school bus. Yeah, same same thing, I would guess.

Here's another stat The World Animal Protection Group estimates that getting snared and ghost gear kills about a hundred and thirty six thousand seal, sea lions and large whales every year. And and you know some of these animals are already endangered. Uh so any conservation efforts are being at the very least blunted by or stunted I guess both by you know, these other things going on. It's just it's it's a

staggering problem. This um, the plastics that they use, I mean back in the day, they used to actually not even that long ago. Nets were made of things that would biodegrade, like sometimes they were cotton or hemp um. And now you know, as we quote advance unquote with synthetics, they have these plastics that these things could be out there for five or six hundred years. Yeah, and when they if they do break up, then the animals eat that stuff and die. Yeah. Do you remember our great

Pacific garbage patch episode from years and years ago. Yeah, that factors in for sure. Yeah. Well, so a lot of this stuff goes and and is attracted to that those huge gyres out there in the ocean. And we talked about in in that episode about how plastic photo degrades when it's just out there in the sun. The motion of ocean currents combined with the sun photo degrading it. It breaks it down into smaller and smaller bits that become part of the food chain, which is not good.

You don't want your food chade eating petroleum based plastics. And that's what commercial fishing gear is made out of, which again that's why it lasts so long, hundreds of years um, which is what you want. You want something very durable in your fishing gear. But when it gets loose, it's a big problem. And like you said, it's a early recent problem too, because it wasn't that long ago like that people were using nets that degraded a lot, a lot easier. Yeah, I mean it says, uh, it

says in here. I'm not sure where you source this, but fifty or sixty years ago. So in the history of fishing, this, this synthetic netting is pretty new. Um. And this isn't just like and we're gonna talk a lot about animals, because that's sort of the main problem, but um, it's an issue to the industry to like it says right here that here in the US, they've estimated that uh, one single ghost net that's lost or discarded or whatever can kill almost twenty dollars worth of

dungeness crab over a ten year span. That's just one net, right, And then there's like you could buy you could buy seven that amount of money. I knew you'd get some comedy in there. Uh. And then there are you know, the small vessels, uh, small and even larger vessels that can get tangled the stuff. They're divers that can't navigate through the stuff, so there is a bit of a

human impact as well. Um. I think we should take a break though, because I'm getting hot under the collar, Okay, and we'll come back and talk about more of this stuff right after this. Alright, chuck. So we've we've kind of given a good overview. But let's get into just how fishing gear could kill marine animals. And there's there's a number of different ways and it kind of depends on the animal. So to start off with, um, we mentioned how a seat turtle might be like, oh, what's

what's on the other side of this loop? Danger? Right? Um? Young seal pups might be doing the same thing. There's a very famous picture of a turtle with a six pack ring. Yeah, man, and its shell is normal size on either side of the six pack ring. But then it looks like it's one of those waste trainers people who have have worn a corset for ten years. It's basically the same thing that nylon. That's exactly what this

commercial fishing gear is made out of. It's made out of plastic nylon or nilon plastic, and um, it holds fast and when it when a turtle gets stuck in it or gets it stuck around them when they're young, as they grow it. Basically they have to grow around this thing. And it's not good. It's not good for your physiology, it's not good for locomotion. You're going to be a stunted little turtle when you grow up like that. Yeah, they I think you mentioned obviously marine mammals that need

to surface. Um, they could die within minutes just because they're simply trapped. They can be affixiated through like immediately like that, or through you know, over the course of

months and years die slow, awful, more awful deaths. Uh. They can prevent them from feeding, like like you said, if something gets wrapped around their mouth and they literally just can't open their mouth, they will starve to death or locomotion can be affected too, right, So if you are a slow turtle, yeah, you're gonna have trouble going after food. Um, and you may starve to death like that as well. Yeah, or you know, swimming circles for the rest of your life because like one side of

your body is entangled, right. Um, so you said there there you can kind of break down the manner of death into acute or chronic One of the sad chronic ones that got me was from towing. Right. Yeah, So let's say you're a whale, your decent size mammal, thank you, you're swimming, you're swimming along, and you get a net stuck on you, like hell fast, You're stuck. You could still conceivably swim along for a while, for a very long while, but now you have basically what amounts to

an extra appendage, a ghost net dragging from you. That's bad enough as it is, because these nets are enormous. Like I was reading about tuna nets. Some tuna fishers use these nets that fall like seven hundred feet deep and are a mile wide. So you get a segment of that, even just a segment of what are those nets on you? It's going to drag you down, make

it harder for you to just move normally. But then on top of that, that net is probably going to catch other animals over time, So not only are you dragging this net, you're also dragging all the animals who have been caught in that same net, and um have probably died. And then eventually you're just going to not be able to keep up any longer, and you you do,

you drown. Yeah, like I can't imagine a lot of things more just shameful for for humans than seeing a blue whale dragging a hundred foot net full of dead sea animals behind it until it dies. It's pretty bad. Like I couldn't even have conceived of something that awful until I've learned about the stuff. It's last word is why serious? Um? I know this is not a it's not a happy episode. It's not. It's and the other problem is it's I think this is one reason a

lot of people haven't heard of this too. It's like, how many more problems can we have to deal with? It's just add one more to the pile, and it makes it really hard not to just get like like catastrophe fatigued. You know, but you just you can't. You can't.

You can't do that. You can't let it happen. You gotta go take a break, shake it off, and come back at it with with vigor, or you need to say this one, this one means something to me so much so that I'm actually going to do something about this. I'm not just gonna like click my tongue and shake my head and keep scrolling through my Twitter feed. I'm gonna do something about this. No matter whether it's dealing with ghost fishing or dealing with climate change or whatever

strikes you in that way, go after it. And that's that's probably the best thing you can do that rather than trying to take on everything at once. I totally agree, man. And I also uh poo poo the idea that like, well, you can't say this is bad when you still do this. Yeah, though it can all be bad. Yeah, And like you

can't not everyone can tackle everything. So if you want to be an advocate for for dogs on the street and go do that, um, because the obvious thing would be for people say well, don't eat fish, don't support the industry, right, and like how can you eat How can you be a dog advocate and still eat fish? Are you going on? You're worse than Hitler? But I say, like, find whatever is meaningful to you and try and affect

change there as best you can. Yeah, but you know, and then you can say I spent every weekend for the last year cleaning up ghost fishing nets and saving seal pups. What did you do, judge? Uh, so, how does this happen? I think that's an enough Like we've hit people over the head pretty hard with this stuff. Are you sure? I think, I mean, there'll be some more stats in here, but I think they get the point. Um,

how does this stuff happen? Uh? And I'm and I'm asking us both And I'll go ahead and say one thing is sometimes it's accidental. Sometimes there's bad weather, um, and you you have to abandon your gear. Yeah. There was a two thousand nine UM United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report that found that most ghost fishing gear is not intentionally discarded, that most of it is accidentally lost, right, which is good that that makes you feel a little better.

And it's not just fisherman don't like who ca yeah see you in hell see, but that that also does happen. It does sadly, it's nice to know that that's not the bulk of it, right, So that when it's unintentional, when it's accidental or something like that. In active nature, a lot of times it's just um, severe weather, like a big storm comes up and just breaks your lines and all of a sudden all of your nets are lost.

And believe me, if you're a commercial fisherman, that is about the worst thing that can happen to you short of sinking while you're out, you know, especially if your net was already full and you're reeling it in and you lost it because of nature. Um, that's that's that's bad for everybody. Another thing that can happen is and

this is one of the bad ones. You could be have elite a gear, or be fishing illegally, maybe using a method you shouldn't or in a place you shouldn't be, and you, uh, there's what's called enforcement pressure, and you abandon your gear because you don't want to get in trouble. Yeah,

there basically just kind of whistle like I wasn't doing anything. Um. There's also what they call spatial pressure, where if you have some nets floating along and another boat comes into the area, doesn't see it, and runs over them, basically cut some loose from their moorings. Then that has just become ghost fishing gear itself. Yeah. The economic pressure I

don't fully get this. What I would imagine that could mean is, you know, it would cost us more to go out and retrieve these things than to just go back to port and get these guys off the clock.

That's part of it. That is definitely part of it, I think, like if you're I think more often than not, is if your gear is all torn up or whatever, and if you take it back to port and you're charged a fee for dumping it because it's considered waste, Like I think that's that's how it's treated in the Netherlands. It makes more sense for you just litter if you're gonna have to pay to have it disposed of properly,

the well the sea can take it. I'll just cut it loose and look the other way and go back home and say, what fishing gear. I don't have anything to throw away. So that's economic pressure. And to me, we'll talk about later. That is the key dissolving ghosts fishing if you ask me, Yeah, and real quickly, like I don't think we said for sure, it's not always just nets um like crab pots and traps and nets for sure, fishing line, hooks, rope. And the one that

really chase me is packing bands. So these bands around bait boxes and stuff, those are clearly just dumped. Oh yeah, they just tossed it over the side. Yeah, And that's actually in violation of a United Nations UM convention from y three that basically was looking to stop pollution from ships and um, you're not supposed to throw anything over the side, from those packing bands to cooking oil that

you fried your French fries in. Like, nothing is supposed to go over the side except possibly fishing trails from cleaning fish. It's called the Don't be a Huge Jerk Convention. Yeah, of ninety that was a heck of a convention. Uh so some of the indirect it was, wasn't it. It's basically like a Max Funcan convention. I remember that and Fred Rogers that was the keynote speaker. It's pretty great. Uh. Some of the indirect causes and we'll see here in

a bit. One of the biggest, biggest problems is, like you said, when you come back in with maybe unwanted fishing gear and there's a where to dispose of it. Um, just simply a lack of these facilities at port uh is a big, big problem. Yeah, And that could is that what you said could fix at all, no putting making, changing it from being an economic burden economic incentive to bring in your old fishing gear. I think that will

change it. But that's what you just said is a huge part of that you need to have places for people that either take it and get money in exchange for their old stuff, or at the very least just throw it in a bin somewhere and not get charged for it. Yeah, exactly, because you know, if you if you know that you can just throw it away right when you get to shore, it's only going to take

up that space on your way back in. Um, there's a pretty good chance that you're not going to litter a mile wide net, you know, especially and especially if you can get money for it. Yeah. And another one of the big problems here, uh, in this one article you sent was it's I think you know these these commercial fishermen are I used to watch Deadliest Catch. I

know how these guys are. Uh. They're notoriously stubborn about new uh technologies, or ironically, it wouldn't be a new technology if they tried to go back to biodegradable nets. But just convincing these uh these men and women too add extra expense or add an extra trip to buy something that will help the the environment. It's a hard sell, even though, like dudes, you're costing yourself crab money, because like twenty grand one lost net can cost twenty dollars

with a crab over ten years. I think they live more in the trip to trip mindset. Yeah, but I think that their industry as a whole thinks of it as like the over ten year kind of thing. And so from what I understand, the industry is kind of woken up to this a little more are and it's starting to take measures a little bit. And we'll talk about that. But um, yeah, it's it's entirely possible that individual fishermen are just kind of like this is not

worth it. Yeah. This one quote in here really kind of drives at home. And I've never heard of the phrase tragedy of the commons, um, but I like it. It says, as as with so many tragedy of the common scenarios, the responsibility to actialize with everyone and the incentive with no one, and that kind of drives at home. There's no like, you know, a lot of times are

international waters there. I know, when they have made inroads with some of these big commercial companies, they're a little hesitant to get too involved because all of a sudden, there name is printed in an article. Even if they're trying to do the right thing, just being associated with this stuff. They don't even want, you know, even if they're trying to help out a little bit. Yeah, because

again it's just one more problem. More morris, you know. Yeah, Like if a company stood up and said so and so company is is making an effort to, uh, now do this, then the flip side is like, well, what have you been doing? That's true? Why did it take this long? Yeah, that's definitely true. And so companies a

little reticent to even get involved, you know. Yeah, but I think um, as of two thousand and fifteen, there is a kind of a new initiative that started that's that's bringing more people into the fold and making it safe to join up. I remember what it was a man that was a McDonald's something I can't remember now, pizza. It was some new sandwich or something that said it's like now made with like real chicken or something like that.

And that was like you put that on a sign because everyone that saw that was like, what was I eating for the past thirty years? No, with ingredients that may not kill you. Um, let's take another break and then we'll come back. We'll we'll take a quick trip around the world and then we'll talk about what some people are doing to combat ghost fish. Yeah, litt bit of good news. Okay, alright, chuck, we're back and we're in the home stretch. We're gonna solve this problem. But first,

let's go shame different parts of the world. Yes, let's uh, how about we step onto my little dinghy and um take a trip around the world. Okay, we'll take us a while because my little dingy is slow, but we'll get there eventually. Let's head to the Northeast Atlantic. Yeah, we're we already talked about the thousand nets that are tossed in there every year. All right, we've already been there, and so I just wasted our three months getting there. Apologies.

All right, so we're stuck in the Northeast Atlantic. I apologize. It's now going to take us six months to navigate, uh through the midwest of the United States, through Nebraska and Kansas in our boat. Maybe we should wear portaging that's along boardage all the way to the northeast Pacific. Yeah, in Washington State, Well that would be northwest, well, northeast Pacific Ocean. I guess northwest US, but yeah, northeast Pacific. So Washington State has oh, man, we already talked about this.

To remember, out of eight hundred and seventy gill nets they rescued or they found, thirty, man, we we already made it here. I hate backtracking, all right, carry you back, um, all right, let's go to the northwest Atlantic, all right, and we surely we haven't been there. I don't believe we have the Gulf of St. Lawrence, for God's sake, No we haven't. Okay, snow crab, this is one snow crab fishery. Um, they lose about eight hundred traps a

year in this one fishery. And uh, some say that each fisher like each boat may lose up to in a year of their traps. And this is an old like, this isn't an old fish tale. That's the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration's just speak Bay Office saying an old fish tale. Yeah, this isn't Finding Dory. I never saw that one, but I did like, Um, what was it? Nemo? I think, right, I haven't seen either one of them. Oh you haven't seen Finding Nemo. No, we'll save it,

save it. Well, Emily doesn't like any of those movies ever, So yeah, because every one of them has some sort of sad death like she got after Bamby when she was a kid. She's like, I'm done. Yeah this one, this one has that too. Yeah, most of them do. And I said, that's a significant reason it's a good movie. Well that's why. I mean, that's the theory is that that's why they do that, is to kind of teach kids about death. Sure, because I mean it's so sanitized

and like kept out of sight in our society. That's a good service, all right, finding Nemos on the list, then yeah, you'll like it. You won't regret seeing where should uh? Southwest Southeast Asia? Um, well, the Arabian Sea. Let's make a little stop over there. They actually they're all woke over there. They figured out that they're people were losing back in two thousand two about two hundred and sixty thousand traps per year. Yeah, which is a problem not just for like say the lobster or crab

or shrimp that they're intended for. They, um, they there's a lot of by catch that, say, like a lobster trap can catch as well, like fish can make their way in there too. So you've got two hundred sixty thousand traps just floating around, no longer providing any seafood for anybody. They're just death traps, literal death traps. That's a problem. And so the United Arab Emirates UM ruled that you had to put a biodegradable like face or panel on the traps from from that point, not from

two to one. So eventually they were just open. Yeah, eventually that one, that one fish that came in last would be freed, while the other ones are like UH, in the Caribbean Gulf of Mexico, this pretty staggering around UH Guadalupe. UH, they lose about half of their traps every year during hurricane season yea, which is about twenty traps. Yeah, half man, that's crazy. And then in UH Louisiana alone, they think that they lose four to ten million blue

crabs lost to their traps. Just in Louisiana, four to ten million blue crabs lost. All right, So this has all been super depressing. UM. What can be done about it? People are are trying to take action. There was an UH an initiative in London founded by the World Animal Protection It's an ng O UH and the Global Ghost

Gear Initiative it's pretty cool name. Uh. And here's the deal. Like, Sadly, when you're first getting efforts like this going, a lot of this stuff that they're doing is like simply gathering data because it's hard to get support because people say, well, what's the data, what's it looking like? And if you say, well, we don't really have great data yet, then they're kind of grounded. So yeah, so the very first steps, um is evidence building and reviewing policies and kind of not

rubber meets the road kind of things. But unfortunately those have to be the first steps, right. But are they're starting to gather data from some of the rubber meets the road stuff. Um. So like if we can go back over to the Pacific northwest right to the northeast Atlantic. Um. I think there's like a little pilot program in Washington State, uh to like clean up ghost fishing stuff and and from I think two thousand ten, um, oh, no, two thousand and seven they were they recovered four eighty one

lost gill nets. Right, so this kind of stuff where you've got people, I think they they had like a few million dollars from the government and just started a program. Um, when you've got people doing these things, and then you have a central organization like the Global Ghost Gear Initiative, then the gears start moving, the wheels start moving, like things start happening, because then you start to generate the data, and then you can start to make the press releases.

Then you can start to like get the the public aware of this kind of thing, and then you get pressure on industry and then industry shapes up. Yeah. Here's one of my favorite things too, and this is not just for this industry and this problem, but one of my favorite favorite things in the world is when someone comes along and says, hey, I'll take that waste product you have because I can use it. That's what I'm saying is going to be the key. Yeah, for sure.

And this is already happening a little bit because like a lot of things, you can generate power through some of this stuff. So that's one way that I think there's a company called networks. It's a like an organ or it's like there's a few companies that came together to to make networks. I think, well, in their case, I don't think they're turning into energy, but they're turning, uh,

fishing nets into carpet tiles, carpet tiles, boom great. Right, there is a one called fishing for energy that's like no, uh, Covanta Energy, right, and then of course Schnitzer Steel the

face of ghost Gear. They they all came together and started putting UM gear recycling outposts and I think eleven states, all over the place, all over the coasts of eleven states, so that when fishermen come in, whether you're just a little solo person and you've got some monofilament line left over, or you're a commercial guy, you can just throw your

old gear in here and it gets recycled, right. And then they take it, and I think Schnitzer Steel UM takes it and get strips all the metal from it for recycling, and then what's left goes to Covanta Energy and they turn it into energy. I looked high and low to exactly how they do that, and I couldn't find it. So it makes me a little nervous about

what they're doing to turn this into energy. But they supposedly have created enough energy from the stuff that they've um that's been recycled to power like homes for a month. That's amazing. Yeah, And I mean this is this is stuff that otherwise would have just gone out stayed out in the sea and drowned whales and and turtles. You like skateboarding, Sure, there's a sustainable skateboard retailer name b u r e oh Bureo and they are turning uh,

fishing nets into skateboards. Like how cool is that? Yeah? Just pretty cool because they're actually buying fishing net from fishermen. Like there they use stuff, so they're giving money for it and then they're turning around and using it to recycle. It's pretty cool. And then there's there's a lot of stuff you could do if you if you don't have a skateboard company or you're not an energy company. Um. There's a group called ghost Fishing and they Um, I

think that's what they're called, right, ghost fishing. I'm not it's just goes. I think it's just goes fishing anyway. Um. They yeah, they're they're group of divers. They were wreck divers in the North Sea. I think they're originally based maybe in the Netherlands. Um, and they noticed on these wrecks that like there was tons of like ghost gear.

Apparently it's a big problem with shipwrecks, so that's why it's kind of dangerous for humans, and then also gets caught up on coral and stuff too, so they started cleaning up. They took it upon themselves and start cleaning up some of these wrecks. And then little by little, this little group of like friends that were you know, wreck divers that started cleaning it up, started making connections

with other groups of divers all around the world. And now all of a sudden, the Ghost Fishing I think Ghost Fishing Alliance or Initiative is um. This this multinational network of people who love scuba diving and who spend some of their scuba diving time cleaning up ghost nets. And there's actually pictures of these people like freeing seal pups from ghost fishing nets. You know, it's pretty cool. Like if you're into scuba diving, there's something you can

do right there. Yeah, imagine there are not many better sleeps at night you can get than having spent your day free and seal pups. You probably sleep pretty well. Uh. In Australia, we can't leave you out. There are a couple of cool things going on there. Um. There's a program called or a group called ghost nets Australia and they've been partnering with indigenous groups to basically help cleaning

up you know, this stuff in individual areas. Uh. And then there's another fishery, Like we kind of have been picking on the fisheries and some of these companies, but um, some are getting on board. There's one in Australia called the Northern Prawn Fishery, So definitely give them your support if you live there. Uh. They're working with the World

Animal Protection Group two. UH. They report sightings, they report ghost gear locations basically like here's where it is at least and sometimes they're even involved in retrieving some of this stuff and setting some of these animals free they come across it. Yeah, I think that's like, that's part of it. You know, there's there's you gotta have the government involved to set up you know, recycling stations or whatever,

to fund pilot programs to get the data going. But and then with industry, you have to educate industry, you have to give them financial incentives to keep their nets bringing to bring them back ashore. And then because they're also the ones who are out there in the sea to too to make it so that it's a it's it's they have incentive to stop in and take in ghost gear when they see it. And part of that

is like what just happened for North pron Fishery. They just got free advertisement for being the good guys because they got involved. So good, I think we just solved

the problem. I'll give you another shout out to There's a brewery from del Rey, Florida, Delray Beach, Florida called Saltwater Brewery, and they made some news recently because they debuted a six pack ring that is made um to bio degrade and it's also edible, So rather than growing around a turtle or keeping a turtle from growing correctly, a turtle can actually eat the six pack ring when

it encounters it, if it makes it into the the wall. Yeah, well, a lot of the crapperies don't even use the rings anymore. They have the recycled plastic kind of lead things. You know, good at job, you have me at brewery. Uh. If you want to know more about ghost fishing or ghost gear, you can type those words into your favorite search bar, uh and it will bring up some pretty good stuff. And since I said stuff, it's time for listener mail.

I'm gonna call this one a T shirt ideas and an email from a dude that has kind of kept up with our T shirt names and he wants us to pick h all three of us to each pick our favorite. Okay, that would be Jerry, Jerry, you just knock like a horse on the ground when I get to a T shirt you like, Hey, guys, love your show and your tangents are hilarious, But it really cracks me up are all the funny band names and T

shirt ideas you come up with. I collected a few of my favorites over the years, and the time has come. I mean to turn a few of these T shirt dreams into realities, going to design and print a few T shirts. But my problem is I can't decide which phrases to use. So if you could each pick one, it would really make my day. And there are twelve, so starting with number one, trusses rock exclamation point, friends, don't let friends at your candle. That's actually Emily has

that shirt. So that's the thing. Okay, I think some one might have sent us send that in actually, ok yeah, because that's happened from time to time, Like we got um Mike's on pants off t shirt. Yeah. Uh number three, if you have a beacon, a probe, and a shovel, you could be Okay. I don't even know if that one run well. He tied them to the episodes, but um, for brevity, I'm just gonna read these. Mystery is weird. I like that one. Not too bad to each their own.

It seems a little snotty these days to have that like on a shirt. Yeah yeah whatever, Uh Master of Jamment that maybe mine is that? I think so so far. Mine is Mystery is weird. I listened to the Tick episode. I do remember that that's for everybody. This one's pretty good. Find your own butter. Jerry just knocked on the floor. Okay, there's Cherry I Viking boy. That's an old one, natural selection, Colin, it just makes sense. Yeah, that's a good one, a

little preachy. Um, don't scrutinize me. It's aggressive and finally, less wash our hands as often as possible. M That mine is Mine's definitely mystery is weird? Okay, I'm gonna go with Master of Enjama and Jerry definitely likes find your own butter. Okay. In fact, I think Jerry said that to me in this office. Who was that uh that wrote that in? That is from Steve Rickart in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Steve, and he said, if you send me your shirt sizes, I'll be sure to make an

extra of each. So I'm an excel m you're probably a what large? Yeah? Man, I'm right on the border between like large being a little drapey and medium, like really showing off way too much. Tum. There's something in between medium and large. I guess large, Jerry, what are you? Jerry's a medium? Did she stamp that out? She did? Medium? Unisex, she said, uh. And then finally he closes with pps in a place in time where people with big platforms

often use your voices to create division. So refreshing to listen to your show. I admire respect you show to all people and the ever you put into being inclusive and empathetic. Thank you, Steve. Yeah, thanks a lot, Steve. But hey, find your own butter. All right, everyone turn on Steve. Uh. If you want to be like Steve and just come up with a great email, well you can start by tweeting to us. If you don't like the email, I'm at Josh, Underscore, Um Underscore Clark. We're

also at s Y s K Podcast. You can join us on Facebook at Charles W. Chuck Bryant or slash stuff you Should Know Either one of those two. You can send us all an email. The Stuff Podcast the House Touff works dot com and has always joined us at our home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff Works dot com