South Australians are being urged to stop using illegal opera house nets for fishing following a recent sighting of a drowned native animal in a banned net in a metropolitan Adelaide waterway.

Opera house nets were banned from use in South Australia last July.

Green Adelaide and RecFish SA are hosting an exchange event on the banks of the River Torrens / Karrawirra Pari on Saturday 11 May (register here), where people can swap their opera house net for a pyramid net.

This is aimed at raising awareness about the opera house net ban, help remove these from the state's waterways and look after our river for a proposed platypus reintroduction.

Green Adelaide Presiding Member Professor Chris Daniels said it was vital to ensure all opera house nets were removed from the system to protect air-breathing aquatic animals, such as rakali (native water rat) and turtles.

“The recent drowning of a rakali in an opera house net (pictured right) in SA presents an unacceptable risk to air-breathing animals,” Professor Daniels said.

“Our opera house net exchange event serves as a reminder about the ban and provides an incentive to help get these lethal nets out of our rivers by replacing them with wildlife-friendly pyramid nets.

“We know that the removal of these illegal nets will be key to enable the return of platypus to the River Torrens / Karrawirra Pari one day soon."

RecFish SA Executive Officer Asher Dezsery said this was the second exchange event, following significant attention from the recreational fishing community last year.

“The high interest in exchanging opera house nets demonstrates that recreational fishers want to do the right thing,” Mr Dezsery said.

"This upcoming exchange event allows the banned nets to be swapped free-of-charge for a pyramid net.

“The pyramid-style nets have a large open section at the top, so they are effective at catching yabbies, but also allowing other wildlife to escape.

“The old opera house nets will be collected for recycling,” Mr Dezsery said.

The opera house net exchange event will be held at Felixstow Reserve, beside the River Torrens / Karrawirra Pari, on Saturday 11 May from  10am until 1.30pm. People can swap their opera house nets in exchange for a maximum of five pyramid nets.

This event aims to fast-track removal of opera house nets to support Green Adelaide’s rewilding project to reintroduce platypus to the River Torrens / Karrawirra Pari. Learn more about this project.

This article was prepared by Green Adelaide and is reproduced here with permission.