They track down abandoned nets that "kill fish for nothing"

• The association Depth's guards intervenes on the French coast to recover the fishing nets abandoned at the bottom of the water.
• These nets represent several threats to the environment.
• They continue to trap fish, they destroy the environment and are a source of plastic pollution.

This time, they will not have put on a mask or glove. Certain post-containment behaviors that cannot be exported - yet? - to the Lérins Islands, off Cannes. Sunday, it is a huge fishing net forgotten for years that the divers of the association Depth's guards (the "keepers of the depths", in French) started to recover at the bottom of the water.

The association intervened in the Lérins Islands area, off Cannes - Google Maps

“We were able to deliver the drop off [a cliff] to the south of the islet of Tradelière. This represents only 600 m2 out of the 6,000 m2 abandoned there, explains Manuel Dietrich, the association's executive director. It will take another three full days of work in July to completely free this part of the sea. ”

The nets "continue to" fish ""

At almost 40 m deep, twelve volunteer divers cut and reassembled in small pieces this equipment that a fisherman had to abandon there after having stuck it.

Sunday, the association #DepthsGuards started to climb a fishing net abandoned for several years at the bottom of the water near the Lérins Islands @IleSaintHonorat off @villecannes (images: Depth's guards) #environment #pollution pic.twitter .com / NncNkHUELe

"The problem is that these nets continue to" fish "for nothing, the fish get caught in it and die, but they also destroy the environment. On the drop that we have cleared, the surface of the rock is completely leveled. There is almost nothing left, no more gorgonians [corals]. There were only a few small flat sponges left. And, in addition, these nets, which materialize over time, block the fish nurseries ”, also explains the diving director.

Warned by divers or fishermen themselves

But the Cannes site is not the only one concerned. Manuel Dietrich, who was also a member of the NGO Sea Shepherd, has already worked everywhere on the French coast. "It is amateur divers or sometimes the fishermen themselves who warn us," he says. And you have to act quickly, because in addition to the direct impact on the flora and fauna, the nets can disintegrate and release plastic particles. "

On the Riviera coast, other dives are also planned off Nice “where new nets have arrived” and on the side of Théoule-sur-Mer. The association is also launching calls for donations on its website and on its Facebook page in order to continue to free the sea from its nets.

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