Ghost net found on Western Australia’s south coast as campaigners demand more action

A ghost net found last week near Albany on Western Australia's south coast. (Supplied: Brett Peake)

In short:

A so-called ghost net has been found washed up along Western Australia's southern coast. 

The dumped or lost fishing nets are generally found off Australia's northern coast and pose a risk to marine life.

What's next?

Campaigners want more efforts from government and industry to deal with ghost nets.

The discovery of a so-called ghost net along Western Australia's southern coastline has sparked renewed calls for accountability on professional and recreational fishers who dump nets into the ocean.

The term describes dumped or lost fishing nets left to drift through the ocean, entangling and otherwise endangering any marine life that encounters it.

This turtle was found in a ghost net in the Gulf of Carpentaria. (Supplied: Dhimurru Aboriginal Corporation)

While most ghost nets are found along Australia's northern coastline, where international fishing boats operate, a large net was found last week on Western Australia's south coast.

Albany resident Brett Peake found the net, measuring about 15m across, at Norman's Beach near a pristine white sandy stretch near the coastal city, 420 kilometres south of Perth.

Luckily, the net did not contain any marine life and appeared to have only recently been lost overboard or discarded. 

"It's a massive ghost net. Who knows where it's come from?" Mr Peake said.

"We unravelled it because it was stuck in the sand. I didn't realise how big the job was going to be to get it out."

With the help of Parks and Wildlife officers, Mr Peake removed the net from the beach with a tractor.

Albany resident Brett Peake removed the net from Norman's Beach. (Supplied: Brett Peake)

He planned to use the net to measure out the size of a southern right whale to illustrate how damaging a ghost net could be.

"We know they can drown a whale,"

he said.

"They can drown a dolphin, so it's just one of those things, you know, try to get it off the beach."

Campaigners want action

Australian Marine Conservation Society plastics campaign manager Cip Hamilton said that, most of the time, fishing gear was lost by accident.

"It might snag on a rock, it's accidentally cut loose by other boats, or it slipped away and got lost during storms and extreme weather events," she said.

Brett Peake helped Parks and Wildlife officers remove the net from Norman's Beach. (Supplied: Brett Peake)

"Less commonly, gear can be intentionally discarded to hide evidence of illegal fishing, but generally, fishers don't want to lose their gear."

With some nets several hundred metres in length, Ms Hamilton said they posed a major risk to marine life.

"The effects are pretty devastating because fishing nets are designed to catch marine life, that's what they do, and they do that really well. But it means that turtles, dugongs, whales, fish, all these species can get caught in the nets and end up drowning," she said. 

"Ghost nets can tangle on each other and create these walls of floating nets that float through the ocean so they can capture pretty large marine life but also really small species as well."

Ghost nets like this one in the Gulf of Carpentaria are more commonly found in northern waters. (Supplied: Dhimurru Aboriginal Corporation)

Ms Hamilton said countries were in discussions over a global plastic treaty on fishing gear, but the Australian government needed to do more.

"What we want to see, as part of that treaty, is fishing gear being addressed across the full life cycle. So that means we're looking at better design and we're helping lost gear be returned to the fisher, but also allowing safe retrieval of lost gear," she said.

The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water declined an interview, but its website states Australia is helping to reduce the amount of abandoned, lost and discarded fishing nets, including funding $1.4 million towards the Global Ghost Gear Initiative.

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