Western Australian Government plans to shoot sharks longer than three metres

The Western Australian Government is planning to introduce a 'shark management' strategy that would see sharks longer than three metres near popular beaches caught, shot and dumped back into the sea.

Aiming to reduce public anxiety over attacks, the WA Government has released a tender calling for an "experienced licensed commercial fishing organisation" to deploy and maintain up to 72 drum lines off popular beaches in Perth and elsewhere along the South-west coast of Western Australia.

The drum lines, containing a hook with bait on them, would catch and, eventually, kill passing sharks that come within 1 kilometre of the beach.

Should a live white shark, tiger shark or bull shark longer than three metres be found on the drum lines, they will be "humanely destroyed" with a firearm, according to the tender documents.

Shark corpses will be then tagged and taken further out to sea and dumped. Other animals caught on the baited hooks will be released alive "where possible".

The drum lines will be patrolled by boats for 12 hours a day, seven days a week, until April with only contractors' vessels will be allowed within a 50-metre exclusion zone set up around the drum lines.

The Western Australian Government said the tender was a "direct response" to the "unprecedented" number of shark attacks along its coastline over the last two years during which six swimmers and surfers have died from shark-inflicted injuries.

Recently-appointed Western Australian Fisheries Minister Ken Baston said that while the WA Government had invested $5 million on researching other deterrents, it was "committed to taking immediate steps" to reduce the threat posed by sharks.

However, scientists and animal welfare groups have labelled the strategy barbaric and even counter-productive.

Christopher Neff, who has completed the first PhD on the "politics of shark attacks" at the University of Sydney, told Guardian Australia there was "no evidence" that baited drum lines reduced the risk of a shark bite.

Neff explained "there is evidence that drum lines draw white sharks in, but I am unclear on how this is meant to reduce the risk to the public..

"If the point is to symbolically kill a protected species for political gain then it will be successful, but if the point is to protect the public from sharks this policy will likely be a failure."

Neff said evidence from Queensland, which also used drum lines, albeit not baited like in WA, suggested the way people used beaches was more important in avoiding shark attacks, with swimming between the flags a "good shark bite prevention tool".

"The answer is to tell the public the truth that shark bites, like lightning strikes, will not have a government solution."

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