This abandoned gill net was recovered from the waters of Apostle Islands National Lakeshore this summer/NPS

In the open ocean, "ghost nets" can ensnare whales and other marine life. In the Great Lakes, these abandoned gill nets can continue to trap fish and waterfowl, and even debris. 

Today there is one less gill net floating free in the Lake Superior waters of Apostle Islands National Lakeshore thanks to the efforts of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and crews from Halverson Fisheries, a commercial fishery based out of Cornucopia, Wisconsin.

The gill net, discovered in May during a lakebed mapping operation near Sand Island, was removed back in July.

“It was an old pond net, at least 15 years old or more," said Amie Egstad, a warden with WDNR. "It took them more than nine hours to get it out with one of the trap net boats.”

Lara Bender, the project’s mapping specialist, reported the find to Apostle Islands park staff on May 8.

“We were surveying near the southeast end of Sand Island and found an object on the sonar. We then went over it with the boat's fish finder, and it was visible on that," she said. "Further investigation with the sonar and our drop video camera revealed that it was a ghost net.”

The net was located in 41 feet of water, with a portion resting on the bottom and another portion floating 10-15 feet off the bottom. Park staff notified the Wisconsin DNR, who then worked with local commercial fishermen to locate and remove the net.

Jay Glase, the mapping project manager for the National Park Service, credits an educational video released this spring by the Wisconsin Sea Grant with raising awareness about the issue.

“It was just by pure coincidence that this happened so soon after the Wisconsin Sea Grant video came out,” said Glase.

Photos of the net show a tangled mass of netting twisted around the poles that had once staked it in place on the lake bottom.