Shark nets Gold Coast: The Shark Net Film premieres at HOTA
A Gold Coast marine biologist has made a surprising claim about shark nets as part of a new film shown at HOTA.
Gold Coast
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A Gold Coast marine biologist claims that sharks have a 96 per cent chance of swimming straight past the very nets designed to capture them.
For the past two years, marine biologist and film director Holly Richmond has researched the effects of shark nets across Gold Coast beaches.
Last month she premiered her movie The Shark Net Film to a full house at HOTA.
In her two-hour movie she interviews marine experts from Sea World, ex-Fisheries officers, scientists, a Greens senator, a shark expert, a shark attack survivor and Sea Shepherd members.
She says she also completed about 60 dives to check the city’s nets, finding no target sharks, but dozens of non-target and threatened species trapped instead.
COAST MARINE EXPERT WANTS CHANGE ON SHARK NETS
The Gold Coast has 11 gill nets, each 186 metres long and 4m deep, stretched across 32km from Main Beach to Rainbow Bay.
“If you combined them all, it’s just two kilometres long and a shark has a 96 per cent chance of making it to the beach before it gets entangled,” she said.
“We never came across (the target sharks) great white sharks, bull sharks or tiger sharks. We found non-target animals like endangered grey nurse sharks … and a humpback whale.
“That in itself says something.”
MARINE CAMPAIGNER SLAMS NETS AS ‘ARCHAIC’
Ms Richmond said the idea that shark nets protected Gold Coast beaches was based on fatalities data, which she said could not be statistically analysed.
Before 1962, when the shark nets were installed, there were three fatalities. Since then, there have been two fatalities, both of which happened in the estuaries.
Ms Richmond disputed the belief that this appears to show that the nets were effective.
She said more people using the water meant there would be more shark bites in general and that the fewer fatalities were more likely a combination of better medical attention after a bite and better quality swimming suits.
Her research had also found that sharks had eaten parts of ensnared animals, suggesting they were aware of and avoided the nets.
This year the State Government announced that members of the public were not allowed to come within 20 metres of a shark net for safety reasons.
The move was slammed by the Human Society International, because researchers will not be able to document and photograph bycatch.
Last year, 102 animals were caught under Gold Coast shark control programs. Of those 16 were sharks considered a danger to humans, according to HSI.
The rest was a mix of dolphins, turtles, sting rays and non-dangerous sharks.
In the first six months of this year, about 60 animals have been caught in the nets. It is unknown how many of them are sharks.
The Shark Net Film has been made available on Vimeo.
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