Helping Injured Marine Life: What You Can Do

At SDTN, we don't just want to help you find amazing places to spend your next diving vacation.  We also want to help you learn how to help keep the marine life, birds, and other creatures you encounter healthy.  There are a lot of different ways you can do this, particularly by making good, sustainable choices every day.  There's another way you can help, and that is by doing what you can to either help injured marine life or report it to someone who can take action.  

The Hazards

There are a lot of hazards to marine life - and some of them can threaten your safety while diving.  One of the worst is entanglement - if you've ever been temporarily stuck in a net or even felt a strand of wayward kelp wrap itself around your leg, you know a bit about what the experience is like.  Before taking any action, be sure to carefully evaluate whether you'll be putting yourself at risk to help a trapped or injured animal, or whether efforts you make could cause the animal to become worse injured than it already is.  If that is the case, then it's best to report the animal to authorities who are properly trained and equipped to handle the situation. 

What You Can Do

First, carry a mesh bag with you when you dive, so you can pick up any plastic rope, trash, or wads of fishing line you find.  If you happen to find a large net snagged on a reef, though, think twice about cutting it up.  It can catch you just as easily as it can catch fish and other animals, and safe removal is usually a team effort since many of the ghost nets out there are huge and heavy.  

Second, carry a couple of sharp knives with you when you dive.  If you encounter a trapped fish or other small animal, you can usually make a few quick cuts and send it on its way, then clean up whatever caused the entanglement.    

Third, if you need to free a larger animal, get your buddy to help hold the animal still while you cut the lines holding the animal in place.  If you can't get close to the animal without getting hurt, don't take the risk.  Instead, call for help once you get to the surface.  You'll receive instructions about what you can do to get help to the trapped animal.  

Finally, remember that animals like seals, sea lions, sharks, and even cetaceans can inflict deadly damage even though you are trying to help them.  Smaller animals and even birds can bite and cause injury.  If an animal is in pain and panicking, it is sometimes not safe to approach.  You won't help the situation by getting yourself injured - instead, you'll only make it worse and cause a delay in getting help to the animal while people focus on saving you.  

Last but not least, learn about local wildlife agencies wherever you go.  They rely on good information to get help to animals that need it.  Carry their phone numbers with you, and learn about the best way to report injured or trapped wildlife at certain times of the day.  When you encounter an animal in need of rescue, get a GPS location if at all possible, and photograph the area where the animal is located if you can.  It's heartbreaking to see an animal in trouble - and it's good to know that professionals are on standby, ready to free the animal or capture and rehabilitate it.