Surfers and swimmers will pay in blood if shark nets go

I didn’t think the debate about how to minimise fatal or traumatising shark attacks at Australian beaches could become more idiotic but it has, writes Fred Pawle.

I didn’t think the debate about how to minimise fatal or traumatising shark attacks at Australian beaches could become more idiotic, but it has.

Until this week, the message from the government and highly paid “researchers” has been that the lives of animals are more important than humans. That stupid, expensive and ineffective methods to keep sharks away from people are “SMART” and hi-tech.

And that anyone who is attacked only has themselves to blame.

Add to that litany of lunacy two new developments from this week.

The state government is proposing to hand responsibility for shark-attack mitigation over to coastal councillors, who these days are more concerned with mad green schemes than collecting rubbish or fixing potholes.

Swimmers at Bondi Beach, which uses shark nets. Picture: Jeremy Piper

And, according to The Daily Telegraph, legal action on behalf of turtles killed by shark nets may be initiated against state Environment Minister Penny Sharpe.

The movement to get rid of the shark nets, which has been growing for years, is based on the number of non-target species caught and killed by them.

Yes, this includes turtles, dolphins and even whales. How unfortunate this is depends on where you sit on the scale of green zealotry.

To many people, it is unacceptable and cruel, symbolic of humanity’s rapacious and destructive attitude towards the environment.

To sensible people, however, it is an unfortunate but acceptably minuscule price for keeping beaches safe for us humans, who are more important.

The statistics speak for themselves: shark nets began being installed in Sydney beaches every summer almost a century ago, and were later extended to Newcastle and Wollongong.

They immediately ended what was then a horrible spate of fatal attacks.

Bondi beachgoers. Picture: Jeremy Piper

Since then there has been only one fatal attack at a protected beach, at Newcastle in 1952.

Their record is similar in Queensland, where the nets are accompanied by another lethal method, drum lines, which are baited hooks anchored to the ocean floor.

These methods were introduced in 1962, and there have been only two fatalities at protected Queensland beaches since then.

The NSW Department of Primary Industries has been ignoring the undeniable explosion in shark numbers while simultaneously pushing for nets to be replaced by a “SMART” system that tags sharks and warns people whenever they approach popular beaches.

The effectiveness of this extravagantly expensive scheme is difficult to know. The DPI jealously guards almost all of the data about how many sharks have been tagged, how many tags fall off the sharks, whether the tags injure the sharks and, worst of all, whether a tagged shark might have been responsible for an attack.

A humpback whale calf entangled in shark net. Picture: Damian Coulter

It is telling that data about the toll on non-target species from shark nets is far easier to acquire.

Many careers at the DPI will be enhanced if the nets are replaced by mad, ineffective but elaborate ideas, such as tags and drones.

So while the careers of “researchers” prosper and green zealots feel the momentary rush of moral vanity associated with saving turtles, Australian surfers and swimmers will continue to pay the price with their lives and limbs.

I have wanted to debate these callous misanthropes for years, but have so far had no takers. That’s because they know they have blood on their hands.