Over the last two years, six people have died in Western Australia in shark vs human encounters.
That has worried the government enough that it has instituted kill zones in certain areas for great white sharks over a specific size.
On the first day the West Australian government issued licences for hunters to kill any shark bigger than three metres (about ten feet long), a 3 metre tiger shark was caught on a baited drum line and shot four times in the head.
Australians have been protesting the decision to cull sharks, with rallies held in Perth and Sydney and at Kingston Beach in Hobart.
As The Mercury reports, there are no proof that culling sharks will make the beaches safer. They quoted an expert Chris Black on the foolishness of exterminating sharks for the mistaken belief that this will protect swimmers.
“The ocean isn’t a hotel swimming pool, it’s a wild place ..we don’t have an unassailable right to feel safe in the ocean, we can’t just exterminate every animal that we see as being dangerous.”
More Australians are killed or mauled by dogs each year than sharks, the editorial in The Mercury points out.
h/t: Mercury
Photo credit: The Mercury
