Tin Can Bay dolphin feeding business says it will close

Tin Can Bay’s biggest tourist attraction says it will go under because of the new commercial fishing ban, and that without dolphin feeding, there will be no Tin Can Bay. Watch the video:

A prominent Tin Can Bay business owner has slammed the State Government’s Great Sandy Marine Park zoning plan, saying the proposed changes could shut him down.

The draft plan was released on Friday, September 23, 2022, and involves an 8.9 per cent increase in the area zoned as Green Zones, effectively locking commercial fishing out of a 791 sq km area.

The plan has attracted significant backlash from commercial fisheries across the Wide Bay since it was announced earlier in September.

In response to the criticism, Environment Minister Meaghan Scanlon said there would be “appropriate financial support available” to commercial fisheries.

Tin Can Bay’s Barnacles Dolphin Centre co-owner Ben Dunstan said the business relied on local commercial fisheries as part of its licensing agreement.

“With the destruction of the fishing industry, we lose the ability to feed dolphins,” Mr Dunstan said.

“Without the dolphin feeding, there is no Tin Can really.”

Barnacles Dolphin Centre may be forced to close if local fisheries are closed, it says.

Mr Dunstan said the dolphin centre used an average of 9kg of locally sourced fish per day to feed the visiting dolphins.

“A fisherman’s not going to go out and fish for 9kg of fish a day and be viable without us having to charge an absolutely ridiculous amount of money to feed the dolphins,” Mr Dunstan said.

“The thing that really worries me, along with the dolphin feeding, is the access to local product.”

“You come here and you want to eat local, and without that fishery, you can’t do that,” he said.

A Department of Environment and Science spokesperson said Barnacles will be able to continue running.

“The commercial use of tunnel nets, set pocket nets and small mesh bait nets – and as such the local supply of fish to dolphin feeding - will be able to continue in the Great Sandy Strait and Tin Can Inlet under the GSMP draft plan,” they said.