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No charges over sea lion's death

Dead sea lion - file photo

No charges over dead sea lion extortion allegations

7pm TV News SA

South Australian police say no charges will be laid over allegations of extortion relating to a sea lion found dead near a broken-up abalone farm.

The animal was found and later photographed wrapped in aquaculture farm debris near Elliston after a recent storm.

Police investigated allegations thousands of dollars was demanded from the aquaculture company to remove evidence of the dead sea lion.

But police say they found no evidence of extortion or any other criminal offence.

Floating debris

Australian Bight Abalone expects its clean-up of debris to be finished by the end of the week.

It has been retrieving rope and plastic rings from areas including West Waldegrave Island.

Managing director David Mazengarb says the company will look for ways to prevent any similar incidents.

"Certainly natural events are outside our control but we'll look at procedures in the future to make any modifications that we can possibly make to avoid any impact on our sea cages of any natural event," he said.

Mariners are being warned by authorities that ropes, nets and trays from the abalone farm are floating as far south as Coffin Bay, 100 kilometres away.

Bob Minnican from the Friends of Sceale Bay says much of the debris will never be recovered.

"These nylon trays have been floating around for the last five years and now there's 20,000 that are out from this and there is no word about what's happening with these trays," he said.

"Only a percentage of these trays are going to be found because they've been distributed into the ocean.

"Many are on the island but many are just floating around."

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