100kg ghost nets removed from Bogmalo waters

Colva: To combat marine pollution along Goa’s coastline, professional divers Levito Rodrigues, Hari Krishnan and Elias Salamao from Goa Diving retrieved nearly 100kg of abandoned fishing nets — commonly known as “ghost nets” — from the sea off Bogmalo beach in Vasco on Sunday.“We carry out this exercise every year as part of our mission to keep the sea clean. The situation is quite bad. We remove huge nets that are deeply entangled in underwater rocks, but there are also countless smaller pieces floating in the sea,” said diver Levito Rodrigues.Ghost nets pose a severe threat to marine ecosystems. Invisible from the surface, these nets continue to trap fish, turtles, crustaceans and other marine species, causing “silent destruction” beneath the waves. Divers said that these floating fragments move across the seabed and water column as the tides shift, trapping additional debris along the way. Rodrigues said, “As the nets move with the tide, other waste items get entangled, increasing their buoyancy.”