These views are representative of the author and not Tracks. The purpose of this article is to present one side of the current debate on how to prevent the increasing number of shark attacks that have taken place during 2025 on Australia’s East Coast.
To read the other side of the debate – click here.
By Fred Pawle.
There was no debate in parliament when the Australian government imposed protection of great white sharks in all Australian waters in July 2000. It was simply introduced via a process established under the new Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, overseen by boffins and bureaucrats who went on to benefit from the multi-million-dollar research grants that started flowing soon afterwards. The cost that ocean users, especially surfers, would pay for all this was simply never discussed.
A mere two months later, on 24 September 2000, recently married Kiwi surfer Cameron Bayes, 25, was attacked by a great white while surfing at Cactus, at the western end of the Great Australian Bight. His new wife was nearby on the beach. His body was never retrieved.
The next day, Port Lincoln surfer Jevan Wright, 17, was attacked while paddling in after surfing Blacks, at Elliston, 300km away. He too was never seen again.
The media’s immediate response was to ask whether a single “rogue” shark was responsible for both attacks. The conclusion was no, the attacks were by two different sharks. This in itself should have caused someone — anyone — in Canberra to press pause. “Two fatal attacks by two great white sharks on consecutive days! But we just declared those things protected! Shouldn’t we reconsider this?”
Of course, nobody did. It’s tempting to speculate whether the deaths were so easily dismissed because both victims were only surfers.
But if politicians were nonplussed, the boffins all but rubbed our salty noses in it. The Great White Recovery Plan, a mandatory obligation under the EPBC Act, was published in July 2002. By then, two more people had been killed by great whites, but that didn’t bother the boffins.
The Great White Recovery Plan covered every aspect of the management of great whites except the most important one: the consequences for people like you and me. Deep inside the report, added almost as an afterthought, is a proposal called “Promote community awareness and education of white sharks”, which consisted of a “community education strategy” for “safe swimming guidelines”. In other words, warn people to expect more sharks in the water from now on.
Well, they were right about that. There have been more deaths, too — at least 60 since July 2000, 25 of them surfers. That’s not counting the serious injuries, which total more than 70.
Great whites weren’t the culprits in every case. Tiger and bull sharks are also increasingly prowling our beaches. Unlike great whites, these two species are proliferating not as a result of protection but because state governments have been steadily shutting down shark fisheries around our coastline.
Australian waters have never been so tightly managed. You can see the consequence of that in our fish shops. There’s almost no flake (shark), a tasty option that was once cheap and plentiful. Most of what is available now was either farmed or imported from countries where marine management barely exists. And it’s all prohibitively expensive to ordinary people.
These restrictions work too well, according tosome professional fishermen. They have decimated the coastal villages that once were home to thriving fishing industries, and transformed them into sleepy hamlets for retired boomers. Meanwhile, offshore, the fish, especially sharks, are in rude abundance.
The cruel twist is that the protection of great whites was based on inconclusive data. “The current population of white sharks in Australia is difficult to assess,” The Great White Recovery Plan admitted in 2002. “[But] despite the inadequacies in the available data, there appears to be an overall, long-term decline in the abundance of white sharks in Australia waters.”
That was it. There “appears to be” fewer great whites, so the “experts” pushed for protection to allow them to proliferate off our beaches, and people died.
That politicians and “shark experts” have been able to get away with this defies logic. Why have surfers and other beach lovers simply accepted political and scientific decisions that have diminished our precious beach culture, one of the few things we Australians can call uniquely ours, not to mention killed dozens of people and injured dozens more?
Or to put it another way, why do we give credence to dark-hearted zealots who think our lives and limbs are expendable?
The answer to that is the same as every other incident of mass psychosis through history: indoctrination. Our media, education system and politics have for decades promoted the idea that the natural environment is sacred and on the verge of collapse, thanks to increasingly industrial human activity.
In our post-Christian world, this belief has acquired an emotional, spiritual meaning. It fills a basic human need, whether you like it or not, to have some form of higher authority to revere and respect.
Don’t take my word for it. Take the word of CSIRO shark researcher Barry Bruce, one of the main protagonists behind the protection of great whites. In December 2016, when the beaches of Newcastle were closed for 10 consecutive days because of an infestation of sharks, Bruce, the nation’s leading shark researcher at the time, appeared on Channel Nine and told the viewers that they should “treat animals like that with respect”.
Treat sharks with respect? Why? To me, they are just dangerous, unpredictable, dumb animals that are as likely to bite my leg off as try to chew a boat propeller.
In the ten years I’ve been campaigning for a reintroduction a shark cull (which is just another word for “shark fishing”, returning flake to our fish shops), I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been accused of wanting to kill all sharks.
This is the go-to argument for most shark huggers, even though I’ve never once said it. It is the response of someone whose religious beliefs have just been offended and needs to respond with impassioned illogic. It’s like burning a Koran outside a mosque.
Of course sharks are a part of the marine environment. I would happily let them perform this role everywhere but near our island home’s glorious coastline. It’s a big ocean. We just want the bits around the edges so we can swim and surf in relative safety.
The best, cheapest way to deter sharks from our beaches is by installing more of the nets that were invented in Sydney in 1937, and which have an almost impeccable record in saving lives. If you want to hear an explanation of why they work, please watch my documentary, The Heart of Sharkness, on YouTube. It’s an entertaining look at every aspect of this complex issue. You won’t be bored.
I’ll leave you with this thought, from the first serious piece I wrote about this topic, in The Australian in July 2015: “People who wish to manage their own environment — even for recreational purposes such as surfing — are not automatically on the wrong side. If you oppose culling, that’s fine. Knock yourself out. Go swimming with them if you like. But spare me the faux sympathy next time someone is killed. These deaths are not necessary.”
