Monday, July 10th, Teiva, Timeo, Liam and Emrys, four children who were
playing in the lagoon around Maharepa discovered a sea turtle whose flipper accidentally got stuck in a net on the water bottom. After a long disentangling, they managed to get her out of the water and called for help. Our team went on the spot in a hurry, but it was already too late.
This sad outcome allows us to remind you of a threat people are not talking about enough but whose impact is considerable for the marine fauna : “ghost nets”.
These nets are lost fishing nets left adrift and which, at worst, cling to reefs and thus become dangerous traps for all the inhabitants of coral ecosystems. When animals like sea turtles or marine mammals get trapped, they get drown, since these animals have lungs just like us and are therefore forced to regularly surface to breathe.
If you see ghost nets during underwater exploration or on the surface, bring them back to the ground to get rid of them in order to avoid the unnecessary and cruel capture of marine animals, such as this young turtle named Tetiliem by the children… when you can’t do it yourself, please feel free to tell us where you have found a ghost net so that we can go there and pick it up !
Bravo and thanks a lot to Teiva Laux, Timeo, Liam and Emrys Soulier for their efforts and reactivity over the situation.
