Can do better

For the past 50 million years, they have had a job to do in the ocean by taking everything out that is not competitive. That keeps the fish stock healthy, which is very important for us.

Now we want to kill them on drum lines to protect (hopefully) bathers who have no job to do in the ocean. Protecting our bathers is a valid idea, but do we have to kill to do that.

In addition, with these drum lines we do not only kill sharks, we kill ‘bycatch’. Moreover, there is no proof that any of the sharks killed has done harm to a person.

We can do much better: catch sharks and tag them; the Fisheries Department has the equipment and the trained teams to do that. Let the sharks go, monitor them and warn popular beaches if a large shark approaches.

On remote beaches, people enter the ocean at their own risk.

Why not protect the swimmers, the sharks and the ‘bycatch’? So, let us be smart and do exactly that.