Divers Clean Reefs to Save Marine Life
Aug. 28, 2014 - Artificial reefs, created by intentionally sinking ships, provide a home for marine life of all types. The sites attract fishermen and divers, who unintentionally leave trash behind, some of which is deadly to marine mammals. A team of conservation divers visits three reefs to carefully extract fishing line and anchor rope that have become entangled in ocean habitats and pose threats to turtles, dolphins, and other marine life.
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Transcript
Joe Kistel
Executive Director, TISIRI
Marine Conservationist
[00:04] - One of the big problems is is that fishing line that accumulates on these reefs over time, is a nasty entanglement hazard. And it can basically entrap all types of marine life, and this includes every animal, such and dolphins and turtles. And that's a big motivating factor for us to come out and do our part and to try and clean these reefs as best as possible.
[00:27] - Today we're sending a group of marine conservation divers off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida to perform a reef clean up. We're going to visit three artificial reef sites that happen to be sunken barges, and on these barges we're going to find corals and sponges, and all kinds of fish and critters.
[00:48] - Any reef site that's utilized by humans is basically an off-shore destination or an attraction. And just because people utilize these reefs means that they're going to leave some footprint behind and unfortunately that's going to be in the form of trash or say fishing line.
[01:03] And fishing line is pretty nasty in itself because generally it's monofilament which means it's clear and doesn't break down. So you have this crystal-clear line down there, animals really can't see it, they get snagged up in it, it doesn't biodegrade so it's there forever, and it's a real nasty potential hazard.
[01:20] - We used anything from stainless steel shears to wire cutters, anything we could to remove this material as best as possible.
[01:34] - We brought up literally miles and miles of fishing line and discarded anchor rope.
Kim Fair
Dive Instructor
[01:41] Lot of monofilament line, which is the fishing line down here. They get caught up on these barges, snap the line off and it just lays down there, and we're down 50 feet so there's probably a 100 foot plus every time you pick up a piece of line, you got a hundred feet plus you gotta cut.
Larry Davis
Diver
[02:00] - Found a couple nice anchors, a lot of fishing line, rope, and we brought up a big chunk of rope.
Joe Kistel
[02:13] - We cut all the live stuff out and we saved what we could in a separate storage container with water and kept it all alive.
[02:20] - Stuff like this, this is live coral, we're going to try and save it.
[02:25] - And it's actually going to a local marine science center and to Jacksonville University.
[02:34] - Everyone benefits from this, not only the environment and marines, but us as humans and as a community benefit from this. Healthy reefs support tourism, the local economy, the sea food market, and several sub-industries. And those industries and all those that benefit from it will be negatively affected if we don't have healthy reefs. So, cleaning up reefs is important to everybody and that's why we're doing our part.