A tourist boat operator has called for gillnet fishing to be banned in remote areas of the Kimberley region of Western Australia after a group of tourists found a saltwater crocodile which had drowned in a barramundi net in the Roe river, 475km north of Broome.
A video of the discovery shows netting wrapped around the bloated body of the crocodile, which was bobbing in the water at the mouth of the river.
Gillnets are a long panel of netting set in a line across the mouth of a river, like a tennis net, which are used throughout northern Australia to catch barramundi.
Brad Priest-Tasker, who operates the Kimberley Quest tour boat, said the lack of supervision over gillnet fisheries in the extremely remote WA coastline meant nets were sometimes not checked for days. This increased the chance that large marine species, such as saltwater crocodiles, river sharks and turtles, would drown in the nets.
“If a commercial netter leaves a net unchecked for too long, it can have a devastating effect on the environment,” Priest-Tasker said. “Sharks, turtles, dugong, crocodiles like this one, and even snubfin dolphins are at risk.
“Passengers on our trips have a once-in-a-lifetime experience connecting with the beautiful pristine environment of the Kimberley coastline, and a scene like this is very confronting for them.”
Figures tabled in WA parliament show 29 crocodiles were killed in gillnets between 2008 and 2014. In the same seven-year period, 77 sawfish, including the endangered green, narrow and dwarf sawfish, were killed.
WA’s fisheries minister, Ken Baston, said there were 19 species of protected or endangered marine wildlife that were at least notionally at risk of being caught in gillnets in the Kimberley, including five species of dolphin – the Australian snubfin, Indo-Pacific humpback, common bottlenose, Pacific bottlenose and spinner dolphins – and five species of sea turtle: loggerhead, flatback, green, hawksbill and Olive Ridley.
The area also contains two prawn fisheries, which netted 110 sea snakes and seven turtles as bycatch between 2008 and 2014.
Baston said there was no formal cleanup or retrieval process in gillnet fishing areas in the Kimberley, and there were no monitoring or reporting requirements for lost nets.
The WA government has promised to restrict gillnet fishing in limited sections of proposed marine parks in the Kimberley, including sanctuary zones in the proposed Horizontal Falls marine park, and throughout the proposed Roebuck Bay marine park, which is home to 140 snubfin dolphins.
Roe river, where the dead crocodile was found, is just north of the proposed North Lalang-garram marine park, on the edge of the Prince Regent national park on the Mitchell Plateau.
The Wilderness Society has called for a ban on gillnetting throughout the proposed marine park areas because of the high bycatch rate. Priest-Tasker suggested the ban could go further.
“Many of these gillnetters travel to the Kimberley coast from Darwin where the NT enforces strict regulations and closure zones, whilst here in the Kimberley they have unrestricted access to the remote Kimberley coastline,” he said.
“With new marine parks being declared in the remote north Kimberley, now is the time to remove these gillnets from the rivers and estuaries that are a refuge for wildlife and a drawcard for tourists from around the world.”
Figures provided by Pew Charitable Trusts show gillnet fishing in the Kimberley is worth $300,000 a year and provides just 3% of the national barramundi supply. The Kimberley coast tourism industry is worth $250m.
