Dead Whale Found in Fishing Net

Every year, more than 300,000 whales, dolphins, and porpoises die suffocated by nets, because they are not able to surface and breathe. Dolphins and other big cetaceans have difficulties in detecting such nets. They are trapped in them frequently and prevented of surfacing to breathe, so they die. That seems to be the reason for the sad end of a whale that was found in Playa Hermosa.

Once more, on  a small scale, we witnessed an act that against the lives of marine animals. Unscrupulous fishermen made the ocean as a dumpster and their waste became a lethal weapon for multiple species of the sea.

That seems to be the reason for the sad end of a whale found last May 10, in the Northwest coast of Costa Rica, in Playa Hermosa. The body of the animal was mutilated.

Due to this situation, employees of Ocotal Beach Resort, among them a biologist, divers, and shipping crew, undertook the task of freeing whale’s body  and removing  the net in order to protect other sea animals.

The campaigns against the pollution of the sea go unnoticed by those using it for their own benefit, with no sustainable mechanism mediating. Fishermen, whose ethics have no place in their scale of values, forget that those resources they use to profit do not recover by magic. Protecting the environment in which they grow, and controlling their exploitation is fundamental.

The use of trawling nets for shrimping or trammel nets for fishing, threatens against the live of bigger species such as whales, sharks, dolphins, and sea turtles that tangle up in the nets who when trying to escape, die suffocated or mutilated by themselves.

Many of this species are already in danger of extinction.

“Every day, almost 1000 whales, dolphins and porpoises die in nets and fishing gears. Some of these species are led into extinction,” said Karen Baragona, of the WWF Species Conservation Program. “We prepared a ranking to help the Governments and agencies in the allocation of better-made investments.”

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF)’s magazine, “Tierramérica” explains this hunting method:

“Trammeling is a type of fishing gear that combines three layers of net of different dimensions. The idea is to let the fish head to come in, but when trying to go back, it will get stuck due to the protuberant shape of its gills. With this technique, the base of the net is supported by ballast in the bottom of the sea, while the top floats. The net is then sort of wall that goes from the top to the bottom of the sea.”

Some efforts have been made to modify this type of fishing and to reduce the accidental deaths of cetaceans and turtles. These include the use of easy-to-see incandescent ropes made out of rigid materials that could be broken by animals of a bigger size, rather than the fish that are intended to be caught. “Sounds could be used to prevent the cetaceans from coming closer and the nets could be picked up more frequently. There should be areas where trammeling is forbidden,” recommended the WWF.

There are nine sea creatures in serious survival problems mainly due to the fishing techniques used. However, they could recover if the appropriate measures were taken. Species such as the bottlenose dolphin and the hump-backed dolphin could benefit from this initiative.

For many, the death of the a whale tangled up in a fishing net could go unnoticed; but it is not the same for those who understand that this happens up to 1000 times per day.