WA’s Smart shark drumline trial will be extended by 12 months at a cost of $2.8 million, bringing the total cost of the trial to $6.4 million.

The trial has been running since February 2019 off the coast of Gracetown in the South West and in that time the drumlines have caught just two great whites and 73 non-target species.

The smart drumline trial will be extended by 12 months.

Fisheries Minister Peter Tinley said the increasing the number of tagged sharks would improve scientific understanding of their movements and help assess potential risks posed by white sharks.

“The additional 12 months of running this trial will give us a new point of comparison across seasons and years to the data already gathered,” he said.