"Entanglement" is the term used when animals are bound by fibres they cannot rid themselves of, which then strangle them or immobilise them to the point of dehydration or starvation. The research project "Basstölpel und Meeresmüll" (Northern Gannets and Marine Litter) has now published its first results on the entanglement of seabirds on Helgoland.
Following two years of intensive field research at the Lummenfelsen on Helgoland, the results show: “At over 50%, orange fibres are the most common plastic components leading to entanglement. These are followed by blue fibres at over 20%. The most prevalent category is thin plastic fibres, which become death traps for these animals.” (Quote: Factsheet “Erste Erkenntnisse zur Verstrickung”, Verein Jordsand)
Each year, approximately 100 Common Murres (Uria aalge) and between 45 and 60 Northern Gannets (Morus bassanus) die due to entanglement in these highly resilient synthetic fibres at the Lummenfelsen. Both species hatch only a single egg each year. Whether the entanglements, and consequently the deaths of these animals, have a negative impact on the overall population is to be determined in future using a population model within the scope of this research project. The origin of these plastic fibres has not yet been sufficiently investigated. However, there are several indications: in the Dutch and Danish trawl fisheries, orange and blue plastic fibres are extensively and explicitly used as so-called “dolly ropes”. These function as chafe protection, woven underneath the nets to protect them from wear — yet this very wear means that these fibres are abraded instead of the nets, and thus drift freely in the North Sea. This "rubbing off" of the fibres from the nets is therefore even intentional.
There is positive news from the German trawl fishery. Here, alternative materials are increasingly being integrated, which do not pose a fatal threat to marine and coastal wildlife. A shift in perspective appears to be taking place at least in Germany, even though trawl fishing itself — which additionally has held MSC certification since 2019 — cannot, from the perspective of ElasmOcean, be sustainable, as it permanently destroys the seabed and thus vital habitat.
Source of the research work:
Verein Jordsand: “Erste Ergebnisse zur Verstrickung. Ein Überblick über 2 Jahre intensiver Feldforschung am Lummenfelsen”. Brochure, 2021.
