NSW shark mesh program: 2018-2019 report shows non target species killed

This season’s shark net data shows the continued carnage off the state’s most popular beaches but 94 per cent of the species captured are not the intended dangerous marine predators.

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The carnage has continued in the state’s shark nets with 60 per cent of all animals entangled in the last netting season dying before they could be released by contractors.

The results of the 2018 to 2019 shark mesh program at the State’s 51 netted beaches between September 1, 2018, and April 30 this year shows that 395 marine animals were caught but 94 per cent of them were not the intended species of white, bull or tiger sharks.

This compares with the 2017 to 2018 season when 403 animals were caught in the nets and just 45 per cent of them released alive.

17 great white sharks were caught in NSW shark nets this season.

During the recording period, there were just two shark-human encounters at meshed beaches — one at The Entrance and one at Manly — both of which involved surfers being bitten by what were believed to be Wobbegong sharks.

Fifty-one beaches from Wollongong to Newcastle have shark nets including 23 in Sydney, 11 on the Central Coast, eight in the Illawarra and seven in the Hunter Region.

Thirteen per cent of entangled animals were threatened or protected, including species of sea turtles and dolphins, many of which died before they could be released.

The animal most commonly caught in the nets were rays and skates.

The most common animal caught is shark nets are rays and skates.

The results also showed whales were regularly crashing into the nets — on 13 separate occasions.

This included twice off MacMasters Beach, once of Shelly Beach and once off Soldier’s Beach on the Central Coast.

In Sydney whales hit the mesh barriers off Warriewood, Palm Beach, North Narrabeen and Maroubra.

Further collisions were recorded at netted beaches in the Illawarra and Hunter regions.

In all cases, the whales swam off, but it is not known whether they were injured in their encounters with the nets.

Whales regularly ran into shark nets up and down the NSW coast.

Further north, rescuers managed to free a whale caught in a shark net off Currumbin in July.

University of Newcastle senior lecturer in environmental science Dr Troy Gaston said it would take many years of increased funding for research to come up with an improved solution to protecting swimmers at the State’s beaches.

Dr Gaston said it was well known that shark nets were “unselective” and were a “perceived safety measure”.

Troy Gaston senior lecturer in environmental science at Newcastle University. Picture: Sue Graham

“They just sit there and catch what they catch,” he said.

“They don’t stretch from point to point or from the top to the bottom — animals can swim around them.”

Dr Gaston said scientists were investigating other ways of deterring sharks, including aerial surveys, drones, smart drum lines and even using a “net” made of bubbles.

However, he said, little was really known about shark behaviour so new solutions would be a long way off at current rates of research funding.

“The removal of shark nets is a vexed question which ultimately has to be decided by the minister,” he said.

The NSW shark meshing program has run since 1937. Pic Stephen Cooper

Whale research organisation ORRCA spokesman Jacqueline O’Neil said they received regular reports each year of the saddening amounts of bycatch that result from shark nets.

“Sea turtles, sharks, rays, dolphins and whales have all become entangled in these nets, and it happens on a regular basis,” she said.

“We understand that these nets make swimmers feel safer, however we simply don’t believe that they are effective or necessary — and the research supports this.

“Only around 5 per cent of animals caught in the nets are target shark species — the remainder is made up of other, non-harmful marine species such as small, non-aggressive sharks, turtles, dolphins, rays and whales.

ORRCA shocked by the amount of bycatch.

“Locally, we saw a humpback calf entangled at Shelly Beach in November 2016, and were lucky that on that occasion, the calf managed to free itself and continued its southward migration with its mother. We have had many reports of animals that weren’t so lucky.”

The Shark Meshing Program is a public safety measure introduced in 1937 to reduce the risk of shark interactions at the State’s most popular public bathing beaches.

Surf Life Saving NSW figures show that almost 6.9 million people visited those beaches in 2018/19.

The aim of the meshing program is to reduce the threat of shark interactions at netted beaches while minimising impacts on non-target species.

Two swimmers were bitten by sharks at NSW beaches — both considered to be by Wobbegong sharks. Picture: Ian Doanto.

The report by the Department of Primary Industries said the only fatality at a meshed beach occurred over 60 years ago and the data tended to indicate that the program had reduced the rate of interactions between swimmers and sharks.

“Traditional shark bite mitigation programs such as the shark mesh program invariably affect non-target species, and the program is listed as a key threatening process in the Fisheries Management Act 1994 and the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 as it adversely affects threatened species, populations or ecological communities, and could cause species, populations or ecological communities that are not threatened to become threatened,” the report said.