Original image credit: United States Coast Guard What: Blacktip,
bonnethead, and bull sharks Where: Four miles south of the Texas
coast How: Last month, a US Coast Guard ship from South Padre
Island came across an illegal, five-mile long gillnet full of
dead sharks 17 miles north of the US-Mexico border. Among the
casualties were 225 blacktip, 109 bonnethead, and 11 bull
sharks. No arrests were made since the boat that set the net was
not found. The Story: “Gill nets indiscriminately kill any fish
or marine mammal it snares across miles of ocean, often leaving
much of the catch spoiled by the time it is hauled in,” said
Coast Guard Commander Daniel Deptula. Because of their
destructive impact on fish, turtles and marine mammals, gillnets
have been banned in Texas state waters since 1981; however, the
Coast Guard recovered 49 miles of them in 2012 and the numbers
are on the rise. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department reports
that incidents of pirate fishing with gillnets off the coast
have doubled since 2011