The New South Wales government is facing renewed pressure to cease its shark net program as a new report questions the accuracy of collected catch data.
Environment group the Envoy Foundation says it has conducted analysis of the Shark Meshing Program on 51 beaches and evaluated its efficacy.
Envoy Foundation founder Andre Borrell said while the shark mitigation strategy was slowly evolving, the state had been seemingly reluctant to make the final transition away from the Shark Meshing Program.
“We hope that this investigation can form the basis for policy changes leading to the overdue discontinuation of the current program, or if required, legal challenges of the current program,” Mr Borrell said.
Data questions
The Envoy Foundation report identified “extremely concerning discrepancies in data”, including a photo of a bird found in shark nets in 2019 not included in data for the 2018/19 or 2019/20 catch data.
“There is an image of little penguin, also known as a fairy penguin — which are protected in NSW,” Mr Borrell said.
“It’s an image of a thing that was been pulled out of shark nets, but the animal does not appear in the data.
“How often does that happen?”
The report found “within the 22-year period examined, a total of 3,009 sharks were caught with 2,593 [86.2 per cent] found dead. These represent roughly 24 different species, excluding those marked as unidentified”.
Deaths after release
Mr Borrell said the report questioned assumptions by the Department of Primary Industries that animals released alive would survive.
“If an animal is cut out of a shark net and goes down in the water that goes down in the data as alive,” Mr Borrell said.
He said footage obtained through freedom of information showed some of the sharks in “pretty unhealthy states”.
“They sort of go belly up and sink down towards sea floor,” he said.
