DOG walkers are calling for fishermen to be ‘more responsible’ after netting was found washed up on Weymouth Beach, some with dead fish and birds ‘mangled’ in it.

A dead cormorant and a number of bass were trapped in one pile of netting near to the Pier Bandstand on Weymouth seafront.

The netting was ‘ghost gear’ - which is fishing gear that has been lost or discarded at sea.

Onlookers said they were horrified by what they saw.

One concerned resident said: “It’s not nice for people to see, we live in a holiday resort. There’s a lot of people who come down here for the weekend, so it’s no good someone looking at that.

“I saw a dead bird stuck in the netting by the Pier Bandstand, well how many people go down there?

“The netting must have broken away and it easily catches birds because it’s so fine.

“These people who put the nets down need to look after them a bit better and there should be coding so we know where they come from.

“But at the same time, I understand the sea has been very rough recently and we’ve had a lot of storms.”

Julie Bland, a Weymouth dog walker, said: “Walking my dogs back from the beach at Weymouth, I noticed a huge pile of fishing net with tangled debris. Somebody must have hauled it up the beach. Tangled in it all manner of plastic debris, and sadly a strangled cormorant. The fisherman need to be more responsible for their ‘rubbish’ and it’s environmental impact.”

Dorset Waste Partnership removed the netting from the beach earlier this week.

Rhiannon Jones, Dorset Coast Forum Coordinator, who runs the campaign Litter Free Coast and Sea, said: “We have worked in partnership with the small scale fishing communities, through the Fisheries Local Action Group, to look at ways to tackle the issue of ‘ghost gear’- which is fishing gear that has been lost or discarded- and we continue to look at ways to address it.

“The small-scale fishers we work with are careful to prevent events like this happening because they know how damaging it can be and they care about the environment. Replacing lost gear is also expensive for small businesses so no-one benefits.’”