A fatal shark attack on Sydney's Northern Beaches has come amid a stalled government plan to trial the removal of shark nets at certain beaches.
The surfer was at Long Reef Beach at Dee Why on Saturday morning when he was attacked by what police called a "large" shark. The man suffered critical injuries and died on the scene.
Less than a week earlier, shark nets were put up at 51 popular beaches across Sydney despite the government's plan to trial winding back the use of nets at some Sydney beaches.
Dee Why beach had a shark net installed at the time of the attack.
NSW, Queensland, and Western Australia are the only states that have shark mitigation programs, with only NSW and Queensland using shark nets.
So do shark nets work, and why are they so controversial?
Beaches remain closed in Sydney's north after a man was mauled by a shark at Long Reef Beach on Dee Why on Saturday morning. Source: AAP / Dean Lewins
How common are fatal shark attacks?
Not very common.
In Sydney, there have only been two fatal shark attacks since 2022, including Saturday's attack. Before that, there had been no fatal shark attack in Sydney for six decades.
Across the country, there are only around two fatal shark attacks per year, according to the Taronga Conservation Society who run the national shark attack database. It's a tiny fraction of the 16.6 million adults who visited Australian beaches between 2023-24, according to Surf Life Saving Australia estimates.
Furthermore, while Australia is home to 180 shark species, only 21 have been recorded biting humans.
In fact, 90 per cent of fatalities come from just three species: white sharks, bull sharks, and tiger sharks.
A Greynurse Shark, also known as the Sand Tiger Shark, is a critically endangered species found along the East Coast. The docile sharks are very rarely involved in attacks on humans. Source: AAP / Mary Evans
What are shark nets?
Shark nets have been used on and off in Australia since the late 1930s.
They are mesh nets placed 500m out from popular swimming beaches to intercept sharks moving towards the shore.
The nets are around 150 metres long and positioned six metres below the surface of the water.
They are anchored down to the sea floor, while floats line the top of the net to keep them upright.
In NSW, shark nets are usually installed at 51 beaches from Newcastle to Wollongong between 1 September and 30 April.
However, for the 2024-2025 season they were removed a month early to avoid an increase in turtle activity in April.
In Queensland, nets stay up year-round at 86 beaches.
Do shark nets work?
"Sharks can swim around it, and then underneath it. It's not a complete way of blocking sharks," Pirotti said.
During the 2023-24 summer, there was one shark-human interaction at a beach with shark nets. A female surfer suffered minor injuries to her lower leg in a suspected wobbegong shark attack at Avoca Beach.
According to the Australian Shark Incident Database, there have been 35 unprovoked shark encounters at netted beaches.
Since shark nets are intentionally placed on popular beaches, it's hard to find comparable statistics to conclusively determine whether netted beaches are safer than non-netted beaches.
In 2019, researchers from the University of Wollongong argued that lifeguards patrol 50 of the 51 beaches that have shark nets in NSW, and that active patrolling of beaches could also be a factor for the low rates of shark-human interactions on netted beaches.
Why are shark nets controversial?
The problem, conservationists say, is that other marine life can get caught in the net.
"They not only kill sharks, but they kill other animals like whales, dolphins, turtles, and whole other marine life," Pirotti told SBS News.
Over the 2024-25 summer, turtles, dolphins, and the endangered grey nurse shark were among the 233 animals caught in the nets.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported in late August that only 24 animals caught in nets last summer were sharks: four bull sharks, two tiger sharks, and 18 great white sharks.
More than two-thirds of the marine creatures caught in the nets — which included dolphins, turtles and endangered shark species — were killed, NSW Department of Primary Industries documents released under Freedom of Information laws showed.
The documents showed that, of the 200 animals caught in the nets, only 24 were target species.
This is consistent with the year before, where 255 marine animals were caught in nets, with only 15 of them being sharks targeted by the nets.
What are the alternatives?
SMART drum lines use bait to lure sharks to a hook. When the shark bites, it triggers a signal to a contractor who, within 30 minutes, checks the drumline, tags the shark, and releases it unharmed.
Listening stations placed near beaches can detect if a tagged shark swims within 500 metres of a beach.
There are 305 SMART drumlines and 37 listening stations already in use in NSW.
In NSW, the government-funded SharkSmart app provides real-time shark alerts based on the data collected from SMART drumlines and listening stations.
It can also provide real-time information as to where tagged sharks are swimming off the coast.
Drones can also spot sharks swimming near beaches from above. These were used by NSW Surf Life Saving in the aftermath of the fatal shark attack on Saturday to try to identify the shark involved.
NSW shark net removal trial stalls
The NSW government planned a trial to wind back the use of shark nets, allowing local councils to nominate a beach that would not have shark nets installed for the 2025-26 season.
The trial was announced after three local councils told the government they no longer wanted the nets.
However, nets were installed as usual at 51 beaches on 1 September, with the trial reportedly stalling over who should decide which beaches go net-free.
"We asked them [the councils] to nominate a beach — they didn't," the NSW Agriculture Minister Tara Moriarty said on 1 September.
NSW Animal Justice Party MP Emma Hurst said on 1 September that the ongoing stand-off meant beachgoers were in a "bizarre situation where the nets are going in today but they might be removed tomorrow". Source: AAP / Bianca De Marchi
NSW Animal Justice MP Emma Hurst said the three councils that sought to go net-free were only contacted in late July about the trial.
Premier Chris Minns on Monday backed the decision to force councils to nominate which beach goes net-free.
Measures in the meantime
The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development have installed a number of features designed to reduce animals getting caught in the nets, such as whale alarms and dolphin pingers.
Surf Lifesaving NSW public safety manager Brett Manieri told SBS News in February that there are a number of things swimmers can do to keep themselves safe from sharks, regardless of whether there are nets on the beach.
"Swimming in a patrolled location, obviously you've got lifeguards and lifesavers, and maybe not swimming at dawn, dusk at night, ensuring that you're not swimming with murky dirty water and waters that have got known effluent or sewage that might've come out," he said.
"So there's a few things that people can do themselves to assist in limiting, I suppose, their exposure to having a shark interaction."
With additional reporting from the Australian Associated Press (AAP).
