Yet another humpback whale has been caught in one of the donated nets. How many more have to suffer and die before something is done about this?

Here you can see the fishing boats and net with the buoy around the whale.

Here is the poor whale all entangled.

And still entangled. You can just about make out one diver on the far side of the whale and another diver’s yellow alternate air source on the near side of the whale. Look how badly caught in the net this whale is.

We cannot believe that this is still happening. Not much came of our meeting with the organisation responsible for donating these nets. A representative sailed down here to meet us in his USD120,000 car (yes, you read right!!) and promised to do all sorts to help us but in the same breath was very quick to disclaim all responsibility and nothing has been done and no contact has been made. We have everything, literally everything, in place to put a stop to these nets and our fishermen are more than happy to give our alternative fishing methods a go. We can’t do it without funding. It would take a tiny percentage of the price of the abovementioned car for us to get going and really make a difference. The way these big organisations work makes me sick. How do they live with themselves or sleep at night? I expect they can sleep soundly because they are so far removed from the problem. They don’t have to rescue humpback whales or turtles or whale sharks. It makes me MAD.

The problem is that there is no proper canvassing of the real problem at grass roots level before assistance is given - just an overwhelming but misguided desire to help without thinking the options through. On top of that, once assistance is given, there is no management whatsoever so in the case of the fishermen they are just left to get on with using illegal nets and all marine life be damned. Instead of helping they have made everything ten times worse. The situation here is grim.

And it’s a crying shame – especially when there are small projects like ours ready and willing to help on the ground with all the necessary contacts, expertise and good community spirit to put long term solutions into play. We live here, alongside our fishermen, so we have a genuine and vested interest in them making a living and educating their children.

Happy new year guys, but not so happy for this poor whale.