The Surroundings We need to re-word this headline to: The Surrounding Elements - 1.4 metric tons of outdated fishing nets were collected from the waters surrounding Rügen.
This weekend, divers have apparently removed 1.4 tons of ghost nets from the Baltic Sea near Rügen. These fishing nets had wrapped themselves around an anchor chain of a sunken cargo ship, 8 kilometers off the largest German island, at a depth of 30 meters. Members of the Society for the Protection of Dolphins in Munich oversaw the operation.
Fourteen volunteers took part in the mission. First, they raised the cargo ship with the massive bundle of ghost nets and towed it towards the chalk cliffs. Next, at a depth of 17 meters, the divers managed to free the nets, reel them onto a different boat, and transport them to the port of Sassnitz. Experts will now investigate if any of the net sections can be repurposed - for instance, as wrist or ankle bands. Scientific research suggests that over 640,000 tons of ghost nets are wandering in the world's oceans.
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During the operation, the divers recognized that some parts of the collected ghost nets originated from ships based in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, a region located in northern Germany. The large-scale operation in the Baltic Sea near Rügen is part of a wider initiative to mitigate the impact of ghost nets on marine life and the environment in Germany. Concerningly, similar challenges related to ghost nets are prevalent in other coastal regions, such as Sassnitz in the Baltic Sea.
