The Corindi River at Red Rock is a popular tourist area, known for its family-friendly park and easy access to the river for boating and fishing. It has been the site of numerous debris clean-ups in recent years, where SURG members don dive gear and conduct debris surveys and then remove any debris found on the river bottom. The surrounding riverbank area is also cleaned of any rubbish and the accumulated debris, including the marine debris, is entered into the Clean up Australia database. The results of the marine surveys are also recorded and go into a statewide database for the Dept of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.
This year, a total of 8 scuba divers and 4 shore support staff conducted the clean-up from the river adjacent to the park near the shop upstream to the vicinity of the drain. Pleasingly, while they found a moderate amount of fishing related debris – line, hooks and sinkers etc, there was very little other rubbish, and it appears this clean-up resulted in the least amount of debris for some years.
During the clean-up one diver found two tethered fish, that is, fish that have been caught but the line has become tangled around an underwater obstruction. If it can’t be landed by the fisher, the fish then eventually dies on the hook as it can’t get free.
Fortunately, both were released relatively unscathed.
The following photos show SURG divers preparing to go underwater, the tethered catfish, and the total debris collected on the day.
