For the second time in a few days, Australian Border Force (ABF) and Maritime Border Command (MBC) have retrieved lost fishing gear, this time from the Timor Sea roughly 150 nautical miles NNW of Darwin.
The abandoned net was sighted by an MBC aerial surveillance aircraft during a patrol and Australian Defence Force (ADF) vessel HMAS Bathurst was tasked to respond, locating and removing the net weighing about 4 tonnes and spanning 500 square metres from the water.
As part of the recovery, HMAS Bathurst’s crew successfully released a number of fish species, as well as a Hawksbill sea turtle, which is listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as being critically endangered. Hawksbill sea turtles are found mainly throughout the world’s tropical oceans, predominantly in coral reefs. They are a fundamental link in marine ecosystems and help maintain the health of coral reefs and sea grass beds.
This operation follows the manual retrieval of about 2 tonnes of ghost net by ABF officers on board ABF Cutter Thaiyak around 240 nm north-east of Darwin a few days previously.
So far in 2016, seven ghost nets with an estimated combined weight of almost 30 tonnes have been located in the Timor Sea, Torres Strait and Arafura Sea. All of these nets have been successfully retrieved and disposed of.
