SAN FRANCISCO (AP) In a mission to clean up trash floating in the ocean, environmentalists pulled 40 tons of abandoned fishing nets this month from an area known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Mariners on a 140-foot cargo sailboat outfitted with a crane voyaged from Hawaii to the heart of the Pacific Ocean, where they retrieved the haul of mostly plastic fishing nets as part of an effort to rid the waters of the nets that entangle whales, turtles and fish and damage coral reefs.
The volunteers with the California-based nonprofit Ocean Voyages Institute fished out the derelict nets from a marine gyre location where ocean currents converge between Hawaii and California during their 25-day expedition, the groups founder, Mary Crowley, announced Friday.