Government policies "costing lives" says Fred Pawle
after yesterday's fatal attack on a surfer…
On Holy Saturday, I bumped into the writer Fred
Pawle while shopping for Easter eggs at a chocolatier in
Bondi. The reader will be pleased to note I selected two one-pound
eggs and a dark chocolate rabbit of equal heft, all of which were
happily received by kids and lover.
Fred was running late for his shift at The
Australian and since I hadn’t seen him since the wake
for our mutual pal Bill Leak who had suddenly been called to
heaven, I offered to drive Fred into the city.
It promised to be an exciting night.
Trump was threatening to take out North Korea’s nukes; Kim was
promising a spectacular retaliation.
“World War III could start while I’m on the desk,” said Fred in
his breathless bass. I asked if he could call me if it did indeed
commence, to which he agreed.
Then we ruminated on how quiet sharks had been in Western
Australia. Fred, as you know, keeps a very close eye on shark
activity, particularly Great Whites.
Well, clearly we spoke too soon. Yesterday afternoon,
a teenage girl was hit while surfing and died soon
after in a nearby hospital.
And this morning, Fred opined that Australia’s timid response to
overwhelming evidence that the shark thing was getting out of
control was costing lives.
Unfortunately, the story is hidden by a paywall, but let’s take
a small peek.
Our insane shark-conservation
policies have cost another life, this time a 17-year-old girl who
was attacked in front of her parents and siblings.
I would like to say that this
incident will be the turning point in this debate, that our
politicians will finally realise we need to reduce the increasing
number of aggressive, lethal sharks in our waters, but this is
unlikely.
• Senate shark inquiry ignores key
issues
The forces against such action
are deeply entrenched in all our major organisations. For example,
Surf Life Saving Western Australia, where yesterday’s attack
occurred, recommends six responses to sharks: research, education,
surveillance, communication, preventive action (“shark barriers”,
which can be built only in placid waters) and emergency response.
It does not recommend the reduction of sharks, despite many
fishermen in the state saying the size and abundance of large sharks, especially
great whites, off WA are alarmingly high.
Researchers and academics whose
careers depend upon continued funding into the behaviour and
fragility of these “apex predators” long ago convinced politicians
and large sections of the community that to reduce the number of
sharks in our waters would be an ecological disaster
So a teenage kid, doing what
Aussie teenagers have done for more than a century, has died
instead. She won’t be the last.
The Senate’s environment
committee, chaired by Green Tasmanian Peter Whish-Wilson, will
coincidentally hold public hearings into shark mitigation
strategies in Perth on Thursday. If, when the hearings begin, the
committee expresses sympathy for the latest victim’s family, it
will be an act of breathtaking hypocrisy.
As reported in The Australian this month, the
committee has already reached a conclusion that its job is to help
revive the number of sharks in our waters, downplay the dangers
they pose, dismiss methods that have proven successful in
Queensland and Sydney, and educate the public about these
“wonderful” and “extraordinary” animals.
Its priority is the safety of
sharks first, people second.
Of the six people invited to the
Perth hearings, two are conservationist academics (UWA professors
Shaun Collin and Rebecca Meeuwig); one is selling an unreliable
personal electronic deterrent (Shark Shield); one advocates the
immediate abandonment of drumlins and nets in Queensland, the
presence of which has coincided with an almost complete absence of
fatal attacks for 50 years (Sea Shepherd); and another is SLSWA,
whose timid six-point plan is outlined above.
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