Gillnetting the Great Australian Bight Marine Park (GABMP)!

The Great Australian Bight Marine Park (GABMP) was established in the late 1990s with one of the main objectives being to protect Australian Sea Lion (Neophoca cinerea) colonies at the Bunda Cliffs.  However recent research has shown that the GABMP does not effectively protect these colonies from shark gillnetting, with high levels of bycatch mortality occuring between 1 November and 30 April each year when a large part of the park is open to fishing. 

Photo: Patricia Payne.

This problem is not isolated to the GABMP. In SA, gillnet fishing areas and Australian Sea Lion foraging grounds almost completely overlap and this shark fishery sets enough gillnets to span the State’s coastline 7 time over - killing up to 300 of these beautiful creatures every year.  With only 14,000 remaining in the wild, many colonies will be driven to quasi-extinction if this continues.  The Wilderness Society is calling on State and Federal Governments to urgently put netting closures in place which will stop population declines and allow the species to recover.

For more about Australian Sea Lions click here >>