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Divers Recruited to Recover Ghost Nets in ‘Ireland’s Biggest Ever Beach Clean Underwater’

29th January 2024
A ghost net retrieved in Donaghadee, Co Down in late 2022
A ghost net retrieved in Donaghadee, Co Down in late 2022 Credit: Ards and North Down Borough Council

This year will see divers join in beach clean efforts in Ireland for the first time, using their skills to find and remove discarded fishing gear also known as ‘ghost nets’ from around the coast.

According to the Irish Examiner, marine conservation organisation Sea Shepherd has recruited a team of specially trained SCUBA divers who will take to the waters this spring to help tackle a hazardous situation that’s rarely visible from the shore.

“The biggest problem is not on the surface, it’s below the surface, and it’s the nets — 70 per cent of marine life entanglement is due to fishing nets being discarded,” said Sea Shepherd Ireland director Emma Tuite.

The campaign is being touted as “Ireland’s biggest ever beach clean underwater”, and the charity welcomes help from prospective divers as well as onshore volunteers to expand its reach.

The Irish Examiner has more on the story HERE.

Published in Coastal Notes, Diving
MacDara Conroy

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MacDara Conroy

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MacDara Conroy is a contributor covering all things on the water, from boating and wildlife to science and business

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Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.