Hundreds of dead sharks and fish, apparently the marine equivalent of a forgotten grocery bag, have washed up on two Welsh beaches, leaving dog walkers with more than just poop bags to deal with.
On Saturday, a full net of dogfish - also known as catsharks, because apparently even sharks can't escape identity crises - was discovered on Carmarthenshire's Cefn Sidan beach. This followed a similar find a few days earlier on Saundersfoot beach in neighbouring Pembrokeshire, where hundreds of dead sharks and fish had already made an unscheduled appearance.
Cliff Benson, a local conservationist and founder of Sea Trust Wales, told the Western Telegraph that smaller-scale incidents are not uncommon in the area. "We quite often see dogfish or catsharks seemingly intent on suicide and beaching themselves, though nobody seems to know why," he said, sounding less concerned than one might expect about mass piscine self-harm. "However, this is on a different scale and looks like they might have been caught by some fishing boat that was hoping to catch more commercial species and thrown overboard dead. Another possibility is it's a case of some marine pollution event, but you would expect several species to fall victim, not just dogfish."
The World Wildlife Fund describes "ghost nets" - abandoned, lost, or discarded fishing nets - as the ocean's version of a booby trap that keeps killing long after its owners have moved on. A single abandoned net is estimated to kill an average of 500,000 marine invertebrates, 1,700 fish, and four seabirds. The Ocean Conservancy calls such nets the single most harmful form of marine debris, which is saying something in an ocean full of plastic bags and microbeads. As much as 1 million tonnes of ghost gear is thought to enter the oceans each year, because apparently we can't even lose things responsibly.
Last week's finds are not the first time Welsh beaches have played host to dead sharks. A few dozen dogfish turned up on Prestatyn beach in 2023, and hundreds more graced Cold Knap beach in Barry in 2021, some still accessorized with hooks and tackle. Dozens of dogfish also made a cameo at Burry Port in 2019, when a fisheries scientist suggested the culprit was bottom trawling - a fishing method that is to the seafloor what a bulldozer is to a garden.