Sharks nets along the Illawarra coastline have been pulled from the ocean to analyse data in relation to the preventative measures effectiveness.
Many groups, including environmental biologists and some politicians, believe that these nets add minimal protection to beaches, particularly given the use of new and better technologies such as SMART drum lines and drones.
Source: ABC Illawarra 2024,
The shark nets span from Garie beach in the National Park down to Wollongong City beach.
The data recorded that 28 non-target animals have been caught, including a dolphin, several turtles and an endangered species of shark.
Scarborough-Wombarra Surf Life Saving Club president Anthony Ritter said that the nets have become too important in the minds of beach-goers and so it was difficult to “get rid of them” without uproar.
“People are more willing to go in the water when there’s a net,” he said. “Even though they are fairly useless in terms of their effectiveness, it will take a lot to convince the general public that nets are not a positive thing.”
This comes on the back of environmental concerns raised by the Northern Illawarra community during the public consultation of the proposed Illawarra wind farm.
Many questions have been raised about the safety of sea-life, in particular whale migration paths, to the extent that the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) increased the consultation period to give the public time to address these concerns.
The Department of Primary Industry has managed to use their resources to find the shark net numbers early, and released them in an effort to put pressure on the government to keep shark nets out of the water.
This follows the results from the previous year that showed that the Sydney nets, from Palm Beach to Cronulla, didn’t catch a single target species of shark in 2023.
Source: The Guardian 2023
