A beach clean was done on Spencer Park Beach on March 25th, it covered over 2 km of beach and everything from fishing line to car tyres were collected. For being a beach that faces one of the biggest oceans in the world, The South Pacific, I found the amount of rubbish to be minimal, which is a good thing! However, it is a sand beach, so I would hate to think how much rubbish and marine debris is buried under the 20 odd kilometres between South Brighten and
the Waimakariri Rivermouth.
During my journey on just 2 km of the beach, I managed to collect over 200 pieces of rubbish. Most common items found, as always, were bottle tops and lids, next were the pieces of rope which I found wrapped around driftwood and buried in the sand. All up 30 pieces of rope measuring a total of 30m was found. What was concerning was the amount of dead marine birds, mostly seagulls and shags. One of the birds was still wrapped in strapping tape which was wedged into its wing, disabling it so it couldn't fly, ultimately resulting in death! All up there were a total of 6 birds and 5 fish, some still with hooks in their mouths. This is very concerning because of the amount of fishing that goes on at the rivermouth. We encourage fishermen to take tangled lines home, not discarding them into the sea for seabirds or marine life to get entangled in.
Thursday, 12 August 2010 19:38 | 
Written by Mary Brown | 
