Ghost nets - abandoned, discarded or lost fishing nets - drift through the oceans, regularly entangling marine animals. Around Australia, discarded nets kill large numbers of animals, including dolphins and whales such as the southern right whale.
Death by ghost net is a terribly slow and painful way to go. The nets cut deeper and deeper into the whales’ flesh, preventing them from eating or swimming properly. It can take weeks or months before the whale dies from drowning, starvation, injury or predation by sharks.
The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society records that post-mortems of whales show fishing nets sometimes cut right into their bones.
A system of registering fishing nets would discourage carelessness, so saving animals already facing countless other threats. Nobody benefits from whales dying agonising deaths in drifting fishing nets.
We the undersigned ask that Australia introduce a fishing net registration system to reduce the numbers of marine mammals dying in discarded or lost nets every year. An identification tag on each net would make it possible to hold people who are reckless with their fishing equipment responsible for the resulting damage, and so discourage such carelessness in the first place. Such systems help to protect the country’s fragile marine wildlife, which has economic as well as conservation and animal welfare benefits. Marine animals, especially large charismatic ones like whales, attract tourist spending. On the other hand, nobody benefits from a whale killed by a drifting fishing net, least of all the whale.
