Experts have dismissed calls to cull sharks after a spate of attacks, while the New South Wales government says it won't rule anything out. It has sparked a wider conversation about how to stay safe in the water, and whether governments could be doing more.
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TRANSCRIPT
A spate of shark bites in recent months have prompted calls for a cull, including from former Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
“I've just read the latest news about a woman fighting for her life after a shark attack at Coogee Beach. It's so wrong that we don't cull sharks after attacks. It's so wrong that we don't have a commercial shark fishery, given the explosion in shark numbers. And it's so wrong that we don't put people before sharks.”
The incident on Sunday 14th June saw a 35-year-old woman sustain critical injuries while swimming in clear water between the flags on a sunny day.
New South Wales Agriculture Minister Tara Moriarty left the door open to a possible cull.
“Nothing is off the table in terms of how we keep the community safe, but we swim in the ocean with living, breathing animals, and we have to share the ocean every day.”
Authorities suspect it was a great white shark that bit Leah Stewart, and Assistant Minister for Immigration, Matt Thistlethwaite, was quick to say culling is not on the cards.
“Great whites are threatened and protected species in Australia, so there certainly won't be any culling of that particular species. I've spoken to scientists at the University of New South Wales. They've got experts there that work in this field. They say that the effects of climate change and the warming waters, particularly in places around Sydney, is bringing more aggressive sharks like bull sharks further south, particularly during the summer months, and that's obviously having implications for water safety in the community. I think we need to take the advice of those experts.”
Dr Leonardo Guida is a shark scientist with the Australian Marine Conservation Society.
He says sharks play a vital ecological role, and there's no evidence culling keeps people safe.
“You look at white sharks, they migrate pretty much right around the Australian coastline. Several have been tagged and kind of coming from Australia right over to New Zealand and there's that famous story of a white shark called Nicole who migrated essentially between South Africa and Australia. So when we look at a cull, the only way a cull will work is if you literally wipe out every single one.”
Dr Guida says the same goes for bull sharks, an estuarine species frequently found in Sydney Harbour during the summer months, which mostly migrates north for the winter.
Emeritus Professor of Marine Ecology at Macquarie University, Rob Harcourt agrees, and he points to two major culling attempts in the past.
“One is in Hawaii where they culled nearly 5,000 tiger sharks after a number of fatalities and major injuries and it didn't have any impact at all on the number of shark incidences because they infill from elsewhere. And a similar program in Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean where there was eight shark attacks in the very fatalities in a very short period, they introduced the culling program again for tiger sharks and the tiger shark abundance didn't change at all because all you do is you just create a sink.”
He says the evidence doesn't support claims shark populations are growing.
In 2018, researchers found the number of great whites is stable, or increasing slightly.
“For bull sharks, it's actually been a decrease in Sydney Harbour over the last couple of years. So there's actually no explosion of sharks. That's a furphy.”
Professor Harcourt says the advent of drones has made sharks more visible, while modern wetsuits increase the time people can spend in the sea.
“So zooming out, when we look at shark bites, yes, historically there are an increase and this is probably most likely because of increasing population: 90 per cent of Aussies live within an hour at the coast, the beach is a really integral part of our lifestyle. So more and more people are using the water more and more often and for longer periods of time.”
Dr Guida says of nine bites recorded this year, four have been fatal, with incidents occurring in West Australia, Queensland, and New South Wales.
One fatality involved someone swimming, and three involved people spearfishing.
“I mentioned the spear fishing because technically they're most likely to be classified as technically as provoked. That's not to say that you went out and intentionally provoked a shark and poked it in the nose and said, "Come on, I dare you. " But it's more that you're doing an activity that is putting out cues or signals like you're spearing a fish, it's bleeding and struggling, that is genuinely going to attract a shark.”
The New South Wales Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development has issued extensive guidelines on how spearfishers, divers, swimmers and surfers can stay safe in the water.
For swimmers, the advice includes staying close to the shore, avoiding the water at dusk, dawn, or when you're bleeding, and steering clear of murky water.
But the department stressed in a statement there is no silver bullet to guarantee swimmers are safe.
Researcher Chris Pepin-Neff says public anxiety about the issue often leads to politicisation.
“I do, I think the New South Wales government has clearly opened the door to a bull shark cull, and that they see this is an opportunity eight months before an election to score some political points and kill bull sharks that nobody really likes anyway. And even if they're a valuable component of the ecosystem. So I always say that shark culls protect politicians that don't protect swimmers and I think that's never been more true than it is in this conversation.”
The University of Sydney academic has been studying the cyclical calls to cull sharks for 20 years.
“Bob Katter was calling for a shark call following a fatal bite on a spear fisherman who was 20 kilometres from shore. So if sharks aren't allowed to swim 20 kilometres from shore, I don't know where if you're going to cull them, like I don't understand what part of the ocean we think they belong in.”
Rob Harcourt says he's worried the current response is based in emotion, rather than science.
“Because we do get upset when people get injured and harmed and people have almost a visceral fear of sharks because we're a bipedal primate and we're entering into their world where we're slow and clumsy and not capable of running away. And so I think that means that we've got a deep seated fear of predation. And we've also removed ourselves from nature so much that we're not used to people being killed by wildlife.”
He says he hopes shark mitigation measures will be informed by the evidence.
“Because the science is changing, and we've got tools we didn't have ten years ago. I mean, drones are remarkable at picking up what's going on. We've also been tracking a huge number of animals on the east coast and we have the best data in the world on where they go and what they do. And there are models that are being built to predict where they're most likely to bite people and using that science and the drones and the smart drumlines that allow scientists to tag evermore animals and then remove them before they become a threat is a really very powerful way of protecting people.”
Dr Guida says West Australia is also trialing eco-barriers.
“So these are kind of semi-rigid enclosures that go from the seafloor to the surface and are able to keep sharks out and bathers can still enjoy the ocean.”
They're different from traditional shark nets, which are designed to entangle and kill large sharks.
Senator Peter Whish-Wilson is the Greens spokesperson for healthy oceans.
“Sharks are already being culled in Australia. I think it's really important to point that out. In New South Wales and Queensland where we have shark control programs, shark nets in place already cull sharks. So shark nets are a fisheries device and their policy outcome is to reduce shark populations to a level where swimmers, surfers, divers will be safe on our beaches. And they've been in place for many, many decades and clearly that policy outcome has failed.”
He's calling for greater Federal leadership on shark mitigation.
“I feel this issue should be elevated to national cabinet. And we called 10 years ago for the federal government to convene a national summit. And one of the problems is that each state has a different approach to shark mitigation and things that we need in place like funding for drone programs, drone spotter programs and better education. The funding's often short term. Sometimes it even relies on philanthropy and volunteer effort. And if this is an issue that's going to be taken seriously by government and protecting its citizens is the number one role of government, then there needs to be a funding assistance in some key areas. So we would like to see a national summit called by the Commonwealth with participation of the states and of course experts on this area.”
He also wants to see funding for shark deterrent devices that have been proven effective, similar to a scheme operating in W-A.
The senator says bite resistant wetsuits can also offer protection, as well emerging technologies like AI sensors.
“I've led this for nearly 15 years. I'm a surfer, a scuba diver. My family all spend time in the ocean. This is a really, really important issue to me personally. And I chaired a very extensive Senate inquiry nearly 10 years ago that went all around the country taking evidence on this exact issue. And it kind of is a bit heartbreaking and very frustrating for me that nearly 10 years later, a lot of the recommendations of that inquiry haven't been acted on. And if they had been acted on, we could have well saved a number of lives in this country.”
