Snorkeller makes an alarming find
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;"> An Aussie snorkeller spotted something unusual while swimming in Emily Bay on Norfolk Island.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Susan Prior was watching the fish swim past her when she caught sight of a mullet swimming with something shiny wrapped around it.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Alarmed, Prior thought it might have been a plastic collar from a juice or milk bottle and another reminder of just how polluted the oceans are becoming.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">It wasn’t until she had a closer look that she saw it wasn’t plastic at all, but what appeared to be a gold wedding ring.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Yesterday, I saw another mullet with a ring collar, but this one looked a shiny metallic gold, with a lot less algal growth compared to the plastic ones,” she wrote </span><a href="https://www.norfolkislandreef.com.au/blog/when-plastic-and-gold-wedding-rings-escape-into-the-wild"><span style="font-weight: 400;">on her blog</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Sometimes these rings escape into the wild, and this is the sad consequence,” she added.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">She said that since mullets feed by snuffling through the sand, it’s easy for any kind of rings to slip over the noses and become stuck.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Prior snapped some photos of the fish and later logged into a community social page to find a post about a man who had lost his wedding ring in the bay.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“I decided to see if I could find the possible owner,” she said. “It didn’t take long for my suspicion to be confirmed; we now have a poor mullet weighed down with someone’s (expensive) gold wedding ring.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Though the owner of the wedding ring, Nathan Reeves, now has an idea of where the ring is, the task of reclaiming it won’t be easy.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Prior told </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Newsweek</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> a group of men from the island will be attempting to catch the fish and gently remove the ring. This is sure to be a challenge due to the “very skittish” behaviour mullets are known for.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“We need to get quite a few of us in there to corral it and then use a throw net to try and catch it,” she told the publication.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Despite the difficulty, Prior is looking forward to seeing the ring retrieved and returned to its owner.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">She wrote on her blog, “Here’s hoping we can deliver a happy ending to his story and for the owner of the wedding ring! The mullet has a life to live and it’s only fair he gets to live it.”</span></p>
<p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Image credit: Susan Prior / norfolkislandtime.com</span></em></p>
