The world can only look on in disbelief and indignation as the Western Australian Government put into practice the brutal culling of sharks in the bizarre hope that it will reduce the (already miniscule) amount of shark attacks on humans.
In August 2013 Leisure Boating reported the findings of the Dyer Island Conservation Trust after the conclusion of their groundbreaking study on the Great White Shark population in Gansbaai. Part of the findings indicated that the Gansbaai shark numbers were in fact much lower than previously thought and supported the concerns that a huge number of sharks are being exterminated annually – drum lines being one of the chief killers. Now, it seems, the Western Australian Government has – to the shock and horror of conservationists the world over – officially implemented the culling of sharks in an attempt to reduce the amount of shark attacks along the Western Australian coastline.
The killing of White Sharks was outlawed in South Africa in 1991 – the first country to do so – and in February 2013 a local fisherman was convicted of killing a Great White Shark and was subsequently fined R120 000 and received a 12 month suspended prison sentence. This was a landmark decision lauded by scientists, conservationists and the public alike, hoping that this verdict will dissuade other anglers from hunting this protected species in our country and perhaps even influencing policies in other countries.
Even so, that is not to say that SA is completely innocent when it comes to the harming of sharks and other marine life.
Two of the sharks that were research subjects of the DICT’s open population estimate study, were killed in 2012. The last one was a male white shark which was caught in the drum lines along the East Coast of SA. These drum lines kill indiscriminately and were set up by the Kwazulu-Natal Sharks Board, a conservation body which claims to maintain ‘shark safety gear’ to offer bather safety along the East Coast. They have installed drum lines and shark nets in approximately 38 localities and, according to DICT, these kill an estimated 40 Great Whites annually, not to mention the countless other marine life that are destroyed.
However, the Government of Western Australia have gone a step further and have approved what is essentially the legal culling of Great Whites and other large shark species in the area by using baited drum lines with hooks one kilometre off popular swimming beaches.
The ‘Shark Mitigation Policy’, as endorsed by Premier Colin Barnett, commenced on the 26th of January, 2014 when the first drum line was pulled in along Meelup Bay and a shark of 3.5 metres were caught and shot four times with a low calibre .22 rifle.
Predictably, this questionable policy has attracted major public backlash and protest from conservationists in Australia and around the world, including those from our own Dyer Island Conservation Trust.
