Whitsundays tourism asked for drumlines to be removed from shark attack hotspot

Fearing bad publicity, a tourism boss lobbied the State Government to remove controversial drumlines from Cid Harbour after two shark attacks, and before a third attack that proved fatal.

FEARING bad publicity, a Tourism Whitsundays manager lobbied the State Government to remove drumlines from Cid Harbour in the wake of two shark attacks because of bad publicity.

The lobbying came just days before drumlines were removed, and six weeks before the debate was reignited after a third – this time fatal – shark attack in the same spot.

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Emails obtained by The Courier-Mail show the then general manager of Tourism Whitsundays, Natassia Wheeler, emailed Tourism Minister Kate Jones’s policy adviser arguing for the removal of drumlines in the harbour due to negative media attention.

That email came days after tourist Justine Barwick, 46, and schoolgirl Hannah Papps, 12, suffered serious shark attack injuries 24 hours apart while swimming in the busy Whitsundays mooring spot.

Tourism Whitsundays chief executive Natassia Wheeler with ministers Kate Jones (left) and Mark Furner (second from left) following the shark attacks.

The Fisheries Department reacted to the attacks by installing baited drumlines, with the media publishing images of the capture of large sharks.

Mrs Wheeler, who is now chief executive, emailed the policy adviser on September 24 asking: “Is there anything you can do to have these (drumlines) removed?

“If you keep these drumlines in, you are going to keep catching sharks,” she wrote.

“The media attention will change from the attacks to the number and size of sharks caught in the Whitsundays, and then that it is an unsafe place to visit and swim.”

She later texted Ms Jones asking “if there is a way any captures can not be reported in the media”.

The drumlines were removed after six days, but came under discussion again last month when Melbourne doctor Daniel Christidis, 33, was killed in a Cid Harbour attack.

Days later experts ruled out installing drumlines in favour of a local shark study and a no-swim zone declaration, finding drumlines “could not guarantee swimmer safety”.

Ms Wheeler this week told The Courier-Mail she sent the email a day before the board decided not to take a position on drumlines and on the back of “emails, threats (and) horrible phone calls” from people who mistakenly thought Tourism Whitsundays authorised them.

It was a “poor choice of words” at a time when her “phone was ringing off the hook” with calls from concerned industry representatives and consumers, she said.

A spokesman for Ms Jones said it was the Fisheries Department, in consultation with marine science experts, who made the decision to remove drum lines from Cid Harbour.

But State Opposition deputy leader Tim Mander said Labor needed to explain if it “bowed to pressure” and questioned why drumlines were installed after non-fatal shark attacks but six weeks later found them not to be scientifically proven after a shark attack fatality.

A shark is caught on a drumline before they were removed from Cid Harbour.