Nearly a tonne of plastic and waste removed from Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary
Hundreds of kilos of plastic waste was collected in a single clean up of the Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary — home to the world’s only wild tailwalking dolphins.
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Hundreds of kilograms of rubbish was collected in a single clean-up of the Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary — home to the world’s only wild tailwalking dolphins.
Sea Shepherd Australia says 971kg of rubbish — mostly plastic — has been collected by volunteers as part of the organisation’s Marine Debris Campaign.
The bulk of this was 714kgs collected in just four hours inside the sanctuary in November.
A second clean-up was held a month later and 256kg of garbage was removed.
Sea Shepherd will hold its next clean-up at Garden Island on April 14.
The 118sq km sanctuary, which includes the Port River, Garden Island and the Barker Inlet, is home to about 40 resident bottlenose dolphins.
The Port River dolphins are internationally unique as they are the only wild dolphins that can perform the spectacular tail-walking trick.
Last week, calf Squeak had to be caught by a team of conservationists to have fishing line removed from his mouth.
Sea Shepherd Australia state campaign co-ordinator Caroline Armstrong was shocked by the amount of rubbish collected in the sanctuary.
“If we love our Port River dolphins, why are we trashing their home and risking their lives,” Ms Armstrong said.
“If all those hundreds of kilograms of rubbish had not been picked up it would have undoubtedly caused even more issues for the inhabitants of both the Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary and the International Bird Sanctuary.
“Plastic degrades into micro plastics, never goes away and is often consumed by animals. “Much of the plastic found was single-use food packaging which can be easily avoided at its source.”
The Port River dolphins are under threat with 11 out of 13 calves born in the sanctuary in the past 18 months dead.
Two adults have also mysteriously died.
Messenger Community News’s Protect Our Dolphins campaign successfully lobbied the State Government for more than a year to drop the unlimited speed limits to 7 knots in key areas of the Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary.
The new laws will come into effect on April 29.
The campaign began after an SA Museum report revealed more than half of the dead dolphins retrieved from the sanctuary in the past 13 years died as a result of blunt trauma, which the experts say could only have resulted from boat strikes.
The public are welcome to join the next clean up on April 14 from 9am to 11.30am at Garden Island.
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