The mother of a shark attack victim has brought a crowd of activists protesting over the West Australian government's cull to tears as she recalled her son's love of nature.
Sharon Burden, whose 21-year-old son Kyle Burden was killed by a great white shark while he was bodyboarding at Bunker Bay in Western Australia in 2009, joined a protest on the steps of state parliament on Tuesday, calling for the catch-and-kill policy to be dumped.
Under the controversial policy - which has drawn international condemnation - baited drum lines have been set off metropolitan and south-west beaches, and any tiger, bull or great white shark longer than 3m that is caught is shot and dumped further out to sea.
Wiping away tears, Ms Burden told the protesters that she and her son had travelled extensively to enjoy nature, and he would have wanted to see sharks protected.
"It is one of these very special moments etched clearly into my memory, which weighs heavily on my mind when I think about this drum line issue," she said.
"Kyle and I were sitting on the banks of the Franklin River in Tasmania. We sat in comfortable silence and watched the wildlife forage in the undergrowth, with just the river and birds as the soundtrack.
"I remember leaning into Kyle and whispering to him `it's an amazing place, isn't it?' to which he whispered back `it's awesome, Mum'.
"I said to him ... we are only able to see this, because before you were born, a group of people knew how important it was to save it and they fought passionately to make that happen.
"That's how I feel about this issue."
The state government revealed earlier on Tuesday that 17 tiger sharks had been killed since the drum lines were set in the South West region on January 25 and in metropolitan waters on February 1.
Sixty-six sharks were caught in total - 23 in the South West and 43 in the metropolitan area.
Sixty-three were tiger sharks, two were mako and one was a blacktip shark.
No great whites have been caught.
Nine sharks have also been found dead on the drum lines.
State opposition leader Mark McGowan said the cull policy was ill-conceived and unscientific.
He said there had only been one tiger shark attack in WA waters in the past 34 years.
"So we are spending millions of dollars to catch sharks that once in 34 years may have bitten someone - can you think of a worse example of public policy than that?" he asked the crowd.
"This is a bad policy.
"This should not have happened."
