Researchers to sail to Hawaii on 'Junk'

In an effort to bring attention to the "growing problem" of plastic contamination and debris in the world's oceans, the Algalita Marine Research Foundation will set sail from Long Beach to Hawaii aboard "Junk," a raft made out of 15,000 plastic bottles.
The trashed up ship will launch on June 1 at the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific at 100 Aquarium Way during an event from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m.
On board will be Dr. Marcus Eriksen and Joel Paschal of the Algalita foundation, and there will be an updated blog as the sea voyage continues.
The Alguita vessel, a large catamaran used to troll the ocean during research excursions of trash in the middle of the Pacific known as a spiraling gyre, returned on May 19 from an overnight trip acting as tow and the escort for the first and only sea trial of the vessel Junk, according to crew member Jeff Ernst.
On the way back from Hawaii here's what Ernst said:
Myctophids, a large fish family consisting of 246 species in 33 genera which retreat down to open darkness at 300-1200 meters during the day. But at night they are quite abundant and a significant constituent of the largest daily migration on the planet, of organisms from the depth of the ocean up to the surface to feed.
On the trip back from Hawaii an interesting question was raised when we saw over and over again so many of these fish mixed in with so much plastic debris. The fish that were captured in our manta trawls from the trip home have all been separated out and are currently being analyzed by our resident ichthyologist Christiana, who to date has done a gut content analysis on over 200 of these fish finding plastic fragments in the stomachs of 38 percent of the fish, with a record maximum size piece of 5mm.
We caught a few fish in the trawls from 2 nights ago but no myctophidae that I could identify in the field. It remains to be seen what we will find once we get the samples back into the lab, but my suspicion is that its simply too shallow a habitat for this species to be in any high abundance.

For updated constant feeds on the trip log on to Junk's blog.
According to Heal the Bay, marine debris has injured or killed at least 267 species world-wide, primarily through ingestion and entanglement.
More than 1 million seabirds, 100,000 marine mammals, and countless fish have died annually in the north pacific from ingesting or becoming entangled in marine debris.

Look for continued coverage as Eye On Ecology will be covering the launch from Long Beach...