WA shark cull: Thousands rally at Cottesloe Beach as catch-and-kill protests ramp up

Updated

An estimated 6,000 people gathered at Perth's Cottesloe Beach on Saturday amid nationwide protests against Western Australia's catch-and-kill shark policy.

ABC reporter Jade Macmillan was at Perth's Cottesloe Beach:

Overwhelmingly the people here are opposed to the cull. They say they're angry at the way the Government has brought it in.



It also comes at a time when the first drum lines to be set off metropolitan beaches were set on Friday.



Within hours two undersized tiger sharks were caught and set free. On Saturday morning though, when fisheries officers went out, they pulled up an undersized shark that was already dead.



They've then had to dump that further out at sea, so the people here and conservationists in general are outraged.



They say it makes a mockery of the Government's line that it would only be sharks 3 metres and above that would be killed.



At this stage the State Government is standing very firm. Premier Colin Barnett has defended this policy at every step of the way.



He's insistent that this policy will run through until April and then run again next summer.



There are questions surrounding that because the Federal Environment Minister has said that any extension of this program would need to undergo a full assessment under federal environmental law.



There are questions as to how long that might take and if it would be ready in time for next summer, but at this stage the State Government is standing firm and insists that it will go ahead again.

The protests came after the second shark killed under the policy was pulled from a baited drum line off Leighton Beach on Saturday morning.

The shark - believed to be a 2-metre tiger shark - was placed further offshore.

The policy allows for great white, tiger, and bull sharks larger than 3 metres to be killed, while smaller sharks are to be released.

A 2.3m tiger shark was also caught on Saturday morning on baited drum lines off Scarborough Beach, and was released 1.4 kilometres offshore.

The protest action kicked off at 4:30am (AWST) when a 19-year-old woman locked herself to one of the two fisheries vessels being used to set and monitor baited hooks off the Perth coast.

The woman had to be cut from the vessel by emergency services, and activists from the Marine Response Unit say the protest delayed the boat's departure by two hours.

Elsewhere, nearly 2,000 people gathered at Manly Beach in Sydney, while protesters also gathered at Glenelg in Adelaide and beaches in Victoria and Queensland.

Greens leader Christine Milne addressed the crowd at Cottesloe along with a number of conservation groups.

"Rights, rights, rights for great whites," the crowd chanted.

Cottesloe Beach protester Pat Murphy says she swims in the ocean every day and is appalled by the State Government's policy.

"All I can say to Colin Barnett as a Liberal supporter, Colin Barnett you've let us down big time," she said.

Premier Colin Barnett says shark attacks are increasing and that WA had seen seven fatal attacks in the past three years.

Shark cull supporters face Cottesloe protesters

A handful of people in support of the shark culling policy attended the rally at Cottesloe Beach.

One of those was John Bell, who says his group was intimidated into leaving.

"Some people were insulting, some people were abusive, others were looking for the opportunity to be aggressive," he said.

Mr Bell says he was on North Cottesloe Beach in 2000 when Ken Crew was killed by a great white shark.

He was also a friend and former colleague of Bryn Martin who was killed in a suspected shark attack in 2011.

Mr Bell says he is a regular beach-goer and has taken part in the Rottnest Channel Swim numerous times, but it has now become too dangerous to catch a wave.

"Perth's got some of the best beaches in the world, but people are too scared to use them," he said.

Mr Bell says there is a lot of misinformation about sharks in the community and this is fuelling the anti-culling sentiment.

Protests held around the country

Former Greens MP Cate Faehrmann was among several speakers to address the nearly 2,000 people at Manly beach.

A number of protesters held signs saying "stop the cull" and "save our sharks".

Hundreds of people also attended a rally in Glenelg, in Adelaide's south-west.

Marine biologist Dan Monbeux says there is no scientific evidence that killing the sharks will reduce the risk of shark attacks.

"We need to understand their feeding and foraging behaviours," he said.

"I think we also need to bring the users of the marine environment, particularly those who are out at remote surf breaks who are at highest risk to understand they are sharing waters with large predators who will follow seals which are often seen at those same surf breaks."

Shark attack survivor Rodney Fox was one of a number of people to speak at the Glenelg rally.

Mr Fox says the money that is being used to cull sharks should be used to research their behaviour.

"We've tagged them with satellite tags with sonic tags. There's just not enough money to put enough sonic or satellite tags to find out where they go, what time of year, when there's more around. The money should be put into science," he said.

Topics: shark, government-and-politics, states-and-territories, activism-and-lobbying, conservation, environment, wa, cottesloe-6011, perth-6000

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