km of fishing longline lost at sea every year
Longlines are long fishing lines that carry thousands of hooks. Enough is lost to circle the Earth 18 times, plus 14 billion hooks and 25 million pots and traps. The figures come from interviews with 451 fishers.
- Value
- 739,583
- Unit
- km
- Data year
- 2022
- Trend
- Not applicable
- Source name
- Richardson et al. 2022, Science Advances
- Source link
- doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abq0135
- Confidence
- Evidence: High
- Caveat / scope
- Scaled from fisher self-reports; replaces the unverified '640,000 tonnes of ghost gear' figure.
- Verified on
- 22 September 2026
Sources last verified 22 September 2026. Page updated 24 September 2026. How we check sources