Frequency of illegal abandoned gillnets in the coastal waters of Golestan Province

Gillnets are sometimes abandoned or lost at sea due to sea storms, tearing by a hard object, or the failure of fishermen to find the fishing area. In this study, the data related to the frequency of illegal abandoned fishing nets in Golestan province were collected through field patrols and questionnaire information from spring to winter 2016. 88,465 abandoned fishing nets were collected in the coastal waters of Golestan Province. The results showed that 78.2% of the discovered nets belonged to Caspian kutum, carp, and common roach, 10.4% of them belonged to sturgeon nets, and 11.4% belonged to beach seines and other fishing nets. Among the interviewed fishermen, 49.2% believed that 10-20% of the nets were lost at the sea, and about 6% believed that more than 40% of the nets were lost. In investigating the causes of losing fishing nets in seawater, 52% of the people believed that the nets were stolen. In other words, human factors are one of the main reasons for the loss of the nets. 25.2% of the people consider strong waves and 15.3% of the fishermen, tearing by boat fins, 6.3% of not being able to find the location of the net, and 1.2% of other factors such as rot of nets are considered to be the cause of the gill nets loss.