Shark hunter Vic Hislop says we need to shoot maneaters

LEGENDARY shark hunter Vic Hislop has called for a shark cull and a royal commission after the death of a 17-year-old girl on West Australian beach.

LEGENDARY shark hunter Vic Hislop has called for a shark cull and says there needs to be a royal commission into shark numbers in the wake of the latest deadly attack.

An angry Mr Hislop broke a self-imposed media ban to tell news.com.au he had been warning authorities for decades that sharks were an increasing threat but people had been “brainwashed” by the pro-shark lobby.

His comments follow the tragic death of 17-year-old Laeticia Brouwer, who died on Monday after being mauled by a shark off the coast of Esperance in WA. She is WA’s third fatal shark victim in a year and the 11th since 2010. It also follows a spate of four fatal attacks off NSW in an 18-month period between 2013 and 2015.

Mr Hislop told news.com.au sharks were “patrolling” both the east and west coast as they moved north for the winter.

“I’ve tried to tell them for the last 40 years. It’s going to continue to happen and the government’s letting everybody down with a false sense of security and all the bulls**t that goes on,” he said.

“And as they continue to let the sharks escape after they eat somebody it’s going to get worse and worse. Make no mistake.”

Vic Hislop and a 7m white pointer shark caught off Phillip Island in 1987.

The same shark.

The veteran shark hunter said there needed to be a rapid-response taskforce of trained professionals who could be deployed fast enough to track and kill any shark involved in an attack.

This would include “sharpshooters” in helicopters with steel-jacketed bullets to “just shoot the shark in the head”.

“They need a taskforce that’s trained and ready to be there straight after an attack and know which way the shark’s going.”

The colourful Queenslander, who closed his iconic Shark Show in Hervey Bay last year after 30 years, also said increased human interaction with sharks through cage diving was effectively “teaching the sharks to eat people”.

He also slammed those defending the killer fish as “shark huggers and shark lovers”.

“We’ve been so conditioned that we can’t kill the shark, it’s not the shark’s fault. It’s criminal and we need a royal commission into it, believe me,” he said.

“The lives of people and the protection of people (are at stake). It’s just so wrong.”

The 69-year-old Australian icon shot to international renown in the 1980s hunting and killing giant great whites and other sharks, before they were protected in the late 1990s. He famously supplied UK art superstar Damien Hirst with several frozen sharks that would become multi-million dollar artworks.

The aftermath of the attack in Esperance that killed a 17-year-old girl. Source: Twitter

His controversial views — borne of his experience rather than the scientific establishment — have attracted much criticism in the past.

However in some areas Mr Hislop actually agrees with pro-animal activists. He is also critical of drum lines as being often ineffective because of the inexperience of those operating them and said shark nets were “the cruellest thing in the ocean” and actually attracted sharks.

“The big sharks feed along the nets. All the animals caught in the nets attract the sharks in.”

He also believes sharks can be deterred by putting decaying shark meat in cages off the coast, because they are repelled by their own rotting flesh.

Vic Hislop in Queensland in 2009. Picture: Russell Shakespeare

Mr Hislop’s frustration in the wake of the latest Esperance attack echoes that of local surfer and professional fisherman Neville Mansted, who told PerthNow: “That’s twice now in the same spot. It could have been my son.”

He said fishermen saw great whites in the area “all the time.”

“They are breeding like flies ... The scary part is that no one will do anything about it.”

The WA Department of Fisheries urged people to stay out of the water after the attack however regional manager Russell Adams said drumlines would not be deployed and denied the beach was a particularly dangerous spot.

Laeticia’s family said today: “We take comfort in the fact that Laeticia died doing something that she loved.”

A supplied image of Laeticia Brouwer, the 17-year-old who died after being attacked by a shark near Esperance on Monday. Picture: AAP image/WA police