SEE ALSO:\u00a0New data shows SWFL tourism tax revenue jumped 14% to $9.1M in July<\/a><\/p>\nAccording to the police department, a fish, sharks and a stingray were caught in the netting.<\/p>\n
City of Sanibel Public Information Officer Eric Jackson said manatees were swimming near the net while crews worked to remove it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were manatee that were around and manatee swimming up to the net,\u201d Jackson said.<\/p>\n
Jackson said one manatee came close to becoming caught but was able to get away.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne came right up to the net and almost got caught, but then was able to get out,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cThankfully, they’re fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crews were also able to untangle and release a stingray, according to the city. WINK News video from the scene showed a dead shark among the marine life affected by the net.<\/p>\n
Sanibel visitor Charlene Keifer said she was relieved crews were able to remove the netting.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m thankful it’s all pulled up because, you know, unfortunately, they don’t understand that they’re swimming into a death trap,\u201d Keifer said.<\/p>\n
Keifer was at the boat ramp when Sanibel officers turned the investigation and recovered netting over to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.<\/p>\n
Keifer said Sanibel\u2019s wildlife has kept her family returning to the island for decades and called the discovery \u201cappalling.\u201d<\/p>\n
FWC told WINK News investigators do not know who the net belongs to. The agency also said using gill-net gear in state waters is a felony.<\/p>\n
FWC is leading the investigation, according to officers at the scene. Investigators planned to take the recovered netting into evidence as part of the case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SANIBEL, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 About 500 feet of illegal gill netting was removed from waters off Sanibel after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,160229,159021,3961,28,157982,160228,600,160231,15471,159150,159152,47651,24443,160230,38979],"class_list":["post-402830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-charlene-keifer","tag-eric-jackson","tag-fish-and-wildlife-conservation-commission","tag-florida","tag-geography-of-florida","tag-gillnetting","tag-recreation","tag-royka","tag-sanibel","tag-sanibel-police","tag-sanibel-police-department","tag-sanibel-public-information-officer","tag-sanibel-captiva-conservation-foundation","tag-sutton","tag-wink"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}