LAUSR

Marine debris in the aquatic environment and its impacts on marine life are widespread, both geographically and taxonomically (Laist 1997, Gregory 2009, Gall & Thompson 2015), becoming such a threat, that the United States Congress passed the ‘Marine Debris Research, Prevention, and Reduction Act’ (33 USC 1951 et seq.) in 2006, designed specifically to empower the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the US Coast Guard to, in part, ‘help identify, determine sources of, as sess, reduce, and prevent marine debris and its adverse impacts on the marine environment.’ The Act recognized that by-catch in active or ‘ghost’ (lost or unattended) fishing gear is a serious threat to many species (see Read et al. 2006, Macfadyen et al. 2009, Arthur et al. 2014) and that marine debris, in general, poses a significant threat to marine species and habitats. Impacts on cetaceans are well docu-