Sad encounter on empty Aussie beach highlights growing threat: 'I thought it was dead'

Left, the seal slumped against the sand with a fishing net wrapped around its neck. Right, staff from Zoos Victoria work to free the tangled juvenile seal.

Genevieve Bale was enjoying a day off from work on Monday when she decided to take her dog for a walk along a virtually empty beach in Peterborough, roughly three hours west of Melbourne, and collect any rubbish or marine debris she spotted along the way.

After wandering along the sand, the Beach Patrol volunteer was preparing to leave when she “got the shock of her life”.

“I’d walked the stretch of the beach and it had no one on it… just as I was leaving the beach I happened to look in that direction and saw the seal,” she told Yahoo News, noting the creature had nestled itself far away from the water, near the sand dunes.

“At first I thought it was dead, but then I realised it was alive and noticed the fishing rope around it.”

Shocking photos show an abandoned trawler net — otherwise referred to as a ghost net — wrapped tightly around the juvenile fur seal’s neck, with “metres of heavy line trailing behind”. While the animal appears to be larger in images, it was only the size of a “biggish Jack Russell dog”, Genevieve said.

“It cried as I approached it. It was definitely distressed because it kept moving its back flipper like it was trying to just get this thing off,” she continued, adding that the seal also looked “quite thin”.

Concerned for its welfare, the volunteer tied her dog to a tree several metres away and contacted another Beach Patrol leader, who then reached out to Zoos Victoria’s Marine Response Unit for help.

As they embarked on the long drive west, members of the Eastern Maar Aboriginal Corporation arrived to keep an eye on the seal and make sure it didn’t head back into the water. Thankfully, zoo staff were able to untangle the animal, which didn’t appear to have any serious injuries.

Genevieve said it was “lucky” that she spotted the seal as she only visits the remote beach about once a year. “It was a stark reminder of why beach cleaners do what they do,” she told Yahoo. 

Since she started volunteering about eight years ago, the Victorian said she has noticed an abundance of discarded rope and marine debris washing up on our shores.

“We collect ropes and nets off beaches every week to prevent this kind of thing — but seeing it happen right in front of you hits hard.”

Ghost nets continue to cause big problems around Australia. Source: Dhimurru Aboriginal Corporation

Since 2018, volunteers for Beach Patrol’s regional offshoot in Warrnambool have collected a total of 72,682 ropes and nets. So far this year, they have recorded 9,055 fishing items — mainly rope and dumped line — and just over 2,000kg of rubbish.

“There is so much rope out there. It’s so harmful… this little guy, how many do you not find that are ending up like this?” Genevieve said.

Ghost fishing nets — abandoned, lost or discarded fishing nets that can drift for years — and marine debris are a big issue across Australia. They wreak havoc on marine life, trapping and killing turtles, dolphins and other creatures, as well as silently destroying fragile ecosystems.

Scientists working to help curb the problem in the Northern Territory previously told Yahoo they’ve discovered ghost nets roughly every kilometre in the region, tangled in rocks, buried in sand or lodged in mangroves.

This article originally appeared on Yahoo News Australia at https://au.news.yahoo.com/sad-encounter-on-empty-aussie-beach-highlights-growing-threat-i-thought-it-was-dead-070707268.html

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