Conservation In Practice - High Seas Garbage Pickup

A publication of the Society for Conservation Biology

CURRENT ISSUE >>

Conservation in the Classroom
Free Teaching Tools

Innovations

High Seas Garbage Pickup

SATELLITE DATA hone in on ghost nets in the Pacific.

By Nancy Bazilchuk
January-March 2006 (Vol. 7, No. 1)

When physicist Jim Churnside boarded a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) “hurricane hunter” airplane loaded with thousands of dollars’ worth of instruments, he wasn’t sure whether he could find the ghosts he was looking for.

What if his team were wrong about the idea of using satellite data to find ghost nets—abandoned fishing gear—in the Pacific? Locating even a thick concentration of nets in the world’s largest ocean, which covers more area than the seven continents combined, was a formidable goal. Other than visual sightings from ships, there were no proven ways to find ghost nets on the open ocean. Only a flight to verify the satellite predictions would tell for certain whether the new approach would work.

TO READ MORE, log in below.

Current subscribers log in here
for access to this article and the entire archive

Not a subscriber yet?

Subscribe Now >> and gain instant access to this article as well as the entire archive

Just not sure? Try a 1 month free online trial >>