Lost and abandoned fishing gear continues to catch and kill marine animals for years or decades after loss - a phenomenon known as ghost fishing. The welfare and conservation impacts are substantial and largely invisible.
Ghost fishing causes some of the most prolonged and invisible suffering in marine systems. Animals entangled in derelict nets suffer through a slow process of struggle, exhaustion, starvation and drowning - sometimes over days. Fish trapped in lost pots cycle through attack by predators, injury and death in an enclosed space with no escape. The suffering is invisible because it occurs underwater, but it is real and ongoing for as long as the gear remains active. Ghost gear prevention (gear marking requirements, mandatory loss reporting, biodegradable materials) and retrieval address both welfare and environmental contamination simultaneously.