Identification, recovery, and impact of ghost fishing gear in the Mullica River-Great Bay Estuary (New Jersey, USA): Stakeholder-driven restoration for smaller-scale systems.

The impact of ghost fishing in large coastal ecosystems has generated considerable interest. In smaller, understudied systems with fewer stakeholders, derelict fishing gear (DFGs) may have impacts similar to these larger systems at the same relative scale. Four years of side scan sonar surveys in the Mullica River-Great Bay Estuary (New Jersey, USA) supported the recovery of 1776 DFGs off-season by commercial partners.