On Sunday our volunteers recovered a large abandoned monofilament gill net in St. Austell Bay. The net was reported to Fathoms Free by IFCA, last year. Unfortunately, we had many planned dives cancelled in 2023 due to the poor weather, but on this occasion we finally got out to clear it.
The weather didn't look great on the forecast, with strong winds and gusts that would normally cancel any dive plans. But the westerly direction of winds on Sunday meant we would hopefully be sheltered enough by land, and we knew we needed to recover this death trap as soon as we could.
The monofilament net stretched across a large area and was sadly still fishing. Numerous catsharks, wrasse and crabs had already needlessly perished, with just a few "lucky" individuals that had survived the indiscriminate wildlife trap despite losing limbs. All marine life, dead or alive, was returned to the sea.
This is the second time in a month that the team has filled a dumpy bag with monofilament net on a single recovery.