The killing of six sharks in Queensland’s tropical north after two attacks last week has shone a light on the state’s shark control program and people are pissed.

Within a day of the second shark attack the Queensland Fisheries Department had dropped three drumlines in the water, big baited hooks designed to catch dangerous sharks.

They went in after Justine Barwick was bitten by a shark in Cid Harbour last Wednesday and, less than 24 hours later, 12 year-old Hannah Papps was bitten while swimming in a bay nearby.

The lines have worked. Since Friday fisheries has caught and killed six sharks; five tiger and a one black tip.

Today at Airlie Beach, not far from where the attacks took place, around 100 local business owners, tourism operators and Whitsundays locals got their protest on to demand those hooks come out.

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Whatsapp Protesters at Airlie Beach in north Queensland.

The fisheries department say the lines are only a temporary measure but couldn’t say when they might be removed.

For Tony Fontes, a Whitsundays dive instructor who was at the protest, that’s not good enough.

“It’s pretty simple, we want the drumlines removed from Cid Harbour now,” he told Hack.

Tony says the community feels for the woman and girl bitten by sharks last week, but points out that such attacks are quite rare.

Such an event doesn’t warrant a knee-jerk, politically motivated reaction of putting drumlines in.

“Drumlines have one purpose and that is to kill large animals, which include sharks, and there’s no significant increase in swimmer safety," Tony said.

On Monday the Queensland Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk defended the Whitsundays drumlines.

“Can you imagine the public outcry if anything else happening in that region during school holidays, if the department of fisheries took no action,” she told reporters during a press conference.

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Whatsapp RACQ CQ Rescue helicopter hovering above the Queensland Yacht Charters boat, with people on board, where a woman was attacked by a shark at Cid Harbour on Whitsunday Island, September 2018.

Nothing unusual about killing sharks in Queensland

The drumlines in Cid Harbour aren’t alone. There’s ones just like them, along with shark nets, at popular beaches and swimming spots all the way down the Queensland coast.

They’re a key part of Queensland Shark Control Program and caught more than 500 sharks in 2017.

While 80 of those sharks weren’t considered dangerous only 20 were found and released before they died on the hook.

The nets and drumlines don’t just catch sharks though, in 2017 they trapped or hooked 132 of what the Department of Fisheries lists at ‘non-target species."

That’s things like rays, turtles and dolphins. While most of them are released alive, last year 60 died before they could be rescued. The deaths included six dolphins, two loggerhead turtles and a humpback whale.

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Whatsapp A juvenile whale calf that had to be cut free after becoming entangled in a shark net off the Gold Coast in 2016

Pushing back against the program

Frustrations over the Queensland Government’s approach to shark control haven’t just riled up a bunch of Whitsundays locals, Jonathan Clarke from marine advocacy group Sea Shepherd thinks the response is highly inappropriate.

“It’s really is counterproductive in both the safety issues at hand and counterproductive for the ecology of the area and certainly for tourism as well,” he told Hack.

Jonathan has been travelling down the Queensland coast investigating the nets and drumlines. When he checked the drumlines near Mackay recently, not far from the Whitsundays, he says none of them had any bait on them.

“The Government’s out there telling us the drumlines are making the beach safer because they’re attracting sharks too them as they go past, when the fact is they’re only baited for a short proportion of the time.”

Even Craig Barwick, the husband on Justine Barwick who was bitten by a shark in Cid Harbour last Wednesday, has his reservations.

"The recent shark attacks in the Whitsundays are particularly personal to me and my family,” he said in a statement.

“The reaction by the Queensland Government setting drum lines and culling sharks is understandable and in some ways I appreciate it.

However, we have to understand that while there have been two attacks in rapid succession, shark attacks are rare and sharks play an important role in the ecosystem of the Great Barrier Reef

Whitsundays drumlines could harm the Great Barrier Reef

Tony Fontes, a dive instructor who’s worked on the reef for more than 40 years, is also worried about the collateral damage the Cid Harbour drumlines could cause if they’re not removed soon.

“The shark being an apex predator is an important part of the reef system to maintain reef health and reef resilience," he told Hack.

“More than ever we need [sharks] because the reef is under pressure from climate change, cyclones, bleaching, etc, and without that apex predator the resilience drops significantly.

“Removing sharks not only does not increase swimmer safety, but it decreases the health of the reef, so we’ve just go to be smarter about how we do things.

While Tony and other protesters were pushing for the immediate removal of drumline from Cid Harbour today, he’d like to see a change in how the Queensland Government goes about shark control.

“It would require a rethinking, perhaps applying 2018 technology instead of 1960s technology, and I think the Government can create a more humane shark control program.”