"You just don’t really come across them that big very often. It is incredibly sad."
Depending on your perspective, news that that the largest Great White ever caught on an Australian drumline, and with four pups inside, is either relief that five Whites are out of the game or a terrible sadness that man’s inability to come to terms with his vulnerability in the ocean has resulted in a majestic creature’s death.
“You wouldn’t expect to see a large white shark that far north in Queensland during summer,” Daryl McPhee, associate professor of environmental science at Bond University, told The Guardian. “The usual range is from about Harvey Bay, Bundaberg, southern Queensland through New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania [and] New Zealand.”
The drumlines target Bull sharks, Great Whites and Tigers and have been in operation since 1962. They had a perfect record until surfer Nick Slater was killed by a Great White at Rainbow Bay in 2020.
1154 sharks were caught in 2024 compared to 958 in 2023. For the previous twenty years the number hung at around 800.
Once caught on a drumline, the sharks are shot dead unless they’re in the Great Barrier Reef marine park in which case they’re tagged and released.
The Humane Society’s Lauren Sandeman told Australia’s national broadcaster, “To lose such a large breeding female and her pups is a devastating loss to the eastern population of white sharks which only has several hundred mature age individuals.”
Senior Shark campaigner Doc Leonardo Guida from the Australian Marine Conservation Society told The Guardian,
“If Queensland had already transitioned to fully non-lethal shark bite mitigation strategies that are backed by evidence, this shark wouldn’t be dead, pure and simple, and this beautiful giant would still be roaming our ocean. You just don’t really come across them that big very often. It is incredibly sad.”
Are you sad like Doc Guida and Loz from the Humane Society or y’thinking, phew, kinda thrilled that thing ain’t swimming around.