World Oceans Day!
News
On World Oceans Day we should all take a moment to reflect on the important role the oceans play in keeping our planet alive.
Our oceans form the beating heart of our world providing oxygen that every living being needs and providing a vast and beautiful home to many animals including whales, dolphins, turtles and an incredible variety of fish.
Today is also a day to think about how we can all do more to protect these crucial ecosystems.
Right now our oceans are clogged with ghost gear - lost, abandoned or discarded fishing gear. It traps and kills millions of marine animals and is found in every sea and ocean on the planet. But with your support we are working hard, with our partners, to reduce the amount of gear lost, remove discarded or lost gear from the water and rescue animals that become entangled.
Related: An injured harbor seal is off to rehab after rescue by MMoME
To celebrate World Oceans Day, we’re bringing you a video of a recent project where a 25-year-old ghost net was “busted” in British Columbia.
World Animal Protection and our fellow Global Ghost Gear Initiative members, the Northwest Straits Foundation, launched a project to remove a huge section of ghost netting that had been disrupting the environment and killing or injuring animals off of Pender Island since before 1990.
The two-day long project involved a team of divers removing the net from the reef by hand, freeing any entrapped animals and pulling the net onboard. With your support, we removed over 2,500 pounds of netting from the ocean and sent it for analysis and potential recycling.
The two-day long project involved a team of divers removing the net from the reef by hand, freeing any entrapped animals and pulling the net onboard.