By PA3 Jacquelyn Zettles, U.S. Coast Guard
Crew members aboard the Coast Guard cutter Walnut recover fishnet
from Lisianski Island and Pearl and Hermes reefs. The Walnut and
NOAA vessel Townsend Cromwell joined efforts to remove
57,500 pounds of marine debris from coral reefs.

Yearly cleanup yields
tons of marine debris

By Mary Adamski
Star-Bulletin

More than 25 tons of abandoned fish nets, tangled long lines and other marine debris were removed in a monthlong cleanup in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands that concluded this week.

The large volume of debris, four times the 1998 cleanup result, "should be considered a wake-up call, not only to the international fishing community but to all of us who depend on the marine environment and use it as well," said Mary Donohue, chief scientist on the joint operation by the National Marine Fisheries Service Honolulu Laboratories, the Coast Guard and six other agencies.

The threat to marine life from material discarded or set adrift was stressed by scientists at a news conference yesterday.

By PA3 Jacquelyn Zettles, U.S. Coast Guard
In Honolulu, a Walnut crew member works to offload part of the
debris removed from Lisianski Island and Pearl and Hermes reefs
in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands. The fishermen's trash is a
threat to Hawaiian monk seals and other marine life.

Some 23 Hawaiian monk seals were found trapped in netting in the past year, said George Antonelis, chief of the marine laboratories protected species investigation. Only about 1,300 of the endangered marine mammals, found only in the islands, remain. Turtles, birds and the living reef also are threatened by debris deposited by the currents in the northwest archipelago which is a national wildlife refuge, he said.

The fishermen's trash was unloaded this week from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research vessel Townsend Cromwell and Coast Guard cutter Walnut into 18 containers and hauled away by city refuse trucks.

Townsend Cromwell Capt. John Lamkin said the debris drifts from thousands of miles away and the archipelago reef acts as a straining filter.

Masses of tangled net weighing more than 500 pounds have destroyed coral when it washed over the shallow reef, according to a release. Dead coral made up 20 percent of the marine debris removed in a 1997 cleanup of the Pearl and Hermes reefs.

The University of Hawaii, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Sea Grant Hawaii, Hawaii Wildlife Fund, and Center for Marine Conservation participated.