LOS ANGELES — July 25, 2014 — The mile-long strands of nylon mesh suspended in the water attached to floats pose a hazard to other sea life, including marine mammals and turtles that can become inadvertently snared as "bycatch" in the nets and drown.
Fresh-caught swordfish will be off the menu in California restaurants for at least the next month, due to a federally imposed temporary ban on drift gillnets in the Pacific to protect endangered sea turtles starting on Friday.
The closure, to remain in effect through Aug. 31, covers 25,000 square miles (62,160 square km) of ocean waters off Southern California that constitute the prime West Coast fishing grounds for swordfish and thresher sharks caught with gillnets.
The mile-long strands of nylon mesh suspended in the water attached to floats pose a hazard to other sea life, including marine mammals and turtles that can become inadvertently snared as "bycatch" in the nets and drown.
The new gillnet ban marks the first time such a restriction has been imposed off California by the National Marine Fisheries Service as a safeguard for loggerhead turtles, an endangered species that normally feeds in more southern waters off Mexico's Baja Peninsula.
Read the full story from Reuters at WTAQ