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Rare sharks caught by 'ineffective nets'

Posted September 3, 2008 11:25:00

The Sydney Aquarium Conservation Fund has called for the removal of shark nets from New South Wales beaches, saying there are more effective ways to protect swimmers.

The fund's senior aquarist, Colin Henrisson, says the nets are largely ineffective and do little to protect beachgoers, but take a heavy toll on marine life.

"Dolphins, dugongs, turtles. We also get stingrays, we also get rare and endangered sharks being caught up," he said.

"We've had occasions whereby we've had our rare and endangered grey nurse shark get caught up, and we can ill afford to lose any."

Mr Henrisson says there are a range of alternatives that could offer swimmers protection while also preserving the safety of marine life.

"Possibly look at having aerial sightings instead, aerial patrols of beaches. Possibly developing a type of net which has a piece of equipment on there which gives out an impulse and deters certain types of marine animals," he said.

He also says if netting remains the preferred option that non-entangling nets could be used.

There have been sustained calls for the removal of NSW shark nets from a range of conservation groups in recent years, but the State Government has previously responded by saying that shark attack fatalities have been greatly reduced since the nets were put in place in the late 1930s.

Tags: environment, conservation, endangered-and-protected-species, oceans-and-reefs, animal-attacks, shark-attacks, australia, nsw

Comments (8)

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• NT boy:

  03 Sep 2008 12:08:59pm

  lets remove all the shark nets and anyone attacked can sue these idiots..
  

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  • GregS:

    03 Sep 2008 12:26:16pm

    And what of the carbon emissions from increased air patrols? What impact will global warming have on the sea creatures theyre trying to protect?

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  • Charles:

    03 Sep 2008 12:56:14pm

    That's right lets litigate as much as possible so that no-one is responsible for their own actions.
    Swim in pools instead if you're scared of sharks.

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• Jack:

  03 Sep 2008 12:22:50pm

  I'm surprised that sharks can actually get anywhere near the beachs what with having to swim through 922,000,000 litres of raw sewage that Sydney pumps into the ocean every day!

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• Jim Bendfeldt:

  03 Sep 2008 12:28:50pm

  Its time to get rid of these nets, which only provide partial protection for swimmers anyway, and are killing many other creatures, including dolphins, turtles and whales.
  
  In 2004, National Geographic published an article about researchers who had developed a shark repellent that uses natural chemical signals to shift the animals from hunting mode to flight mode.
  
  Since then, a number of other deterents have been developed, including magnetic and electronic devices that generate fields that repel sharks, and a chemical derived from extracts of dead sharks (sharks apparently are put off when they smell a dead shark).
  

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  • Ron T:

    03 Sep 2008 12:45:36pm

    So save the sharks and people by killing sharks for repellent to keep them away from people.???

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• Dann:

  03 Sep 2008 12:44:07pm

  Often the shark corpses pulled out of these nets are tangled up on the shoreward side of the net anyway - which means they were swimming about inside the "protected" area for a while and were actually caught trying to get out. It goes to show how ineffective these nets really are. I suspect they serve more of a psychological purpose to put swimmers at ease than a practical one.
  
  We'd be better off spending money on things that actually do save human lives, like boom gates at railway level crossings. The chances of actually getting killed (or even injured) by a shark are so small to begin with. You're more likely to die from a bea sting - yet you don't see outdoor recreation areas screened off with insect netting!

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• stephen michael:

  03 Sep 2008 5:29:53pm

  when will these sharks learn? the great outdoors is our playground first, their home second!!
  
  stupid sharks.

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