http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cobi.12355/abstract

WILCOX, C., HEATHCOTE, G., GOLDBERG, J., GUNN, R., PEEL, D. and
HARDESTY, B. D. (2014), Understanding the Sources and Effects of
Abandoned, Lost, and Discarded Fishing Gear on Marine Turtles in
Northern Australia. Conservation Biology. doi: 10.1111/cobi.12355

Abstract
Globally, 6.4 million tons of fishing gear are lost in the oceans
annually. This gear (i.e., ghost nets), whether accidently lost,
abandoned, or deliberately discarded, threatens marine wildlife as it
drifts with prevailing currents and continues to entangle marine
organisms indiscriminately. Northern Australia has some of the highest
densities of ghost nets in the world, with up to 3 tons washing ashore
per kilometer of shoreline annually. This region supports globally
significant populations of internationally threatened marine fauna,
including 6 of the 7 extant marine turtles. We examined the threat ghost
nets pose to marine turtles and assessed whether nets associated with
particular fisheries are linked with turtle entanglement by analyzing
the capture rates of turtles and potential source fisheries from nearly
9000 nets found on Australia's northern coast. Nets with relatively
larger mesh and smaller twine sizes (e.g., pelagic drift nets) had the
highest probability of entanglement for marine turtles. Net size was
important; larger nets appeared to attract turtles, which further
increased their catch rates. Our results point to issues with trawl and
drift-net fisheries, the former due to the large number of nets and
fragments found and the latter due to the very high catch rates
resulting from the net design. Catch rates for fine-mesh gill nets can
reach as high as 4 turtles/100 m of net length. We estimated that the
total number of turtles caught by the 8690 ghost nets we sampled was
between 4866 and 14,600, assuming nets drift for 1 year. Ghost nets
continue to accumulate on Australia's northern shore due to both legal
and illegal fishing; over 13,000 nets have been removed since 2005. This
is an important and ongoing transboundary threat to biodiversity in the
region that requires attention from the countries surrounding the
Arafura and Timor Seas.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cobi.12355/suppinfo

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http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1523-1739/earlyview

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