SARAH FERGUSON, PRESENTER: After seven fatal shark attacks in three years, the West Australian Government introduced a pilot program that targeted bull, tiger and great white sharks off the state's beaches. It's been met with mass protests and a Supreme Court challenge. Today the Government released its data from the trial, confirming not one great white shark was caught, the species believed responsible for most of the attacks. While the WA Government has described the program as a success, the results have provided further ammunition for activists fighting a three-year extension of the policy. Claire Moodie reports.

CLAIRE MOODIE, REPORTER: Off the West Australian coast, these activists are in hot pursuit. They've been shadowing Fisheries patrol boats for months, filming and monitoring the killing of sharks. Among them is Madison Stewart, a young recruit to the cause.

MADISON STEWART, SHARK CONSERVATIONIST: There are just some days where you don't expect it and you think we've had a shark-free day and then you come back and see that.

CLAIRE MOODIE: This is Madison Stewart's underwater vision of a tiger shark caught on drum lines taken before the drum lines were pulled up last week.

MADISON STEWART: People have a right to know what's going on and they definitely need to realise that we can't keep trusting governments to do the right thing.

CLAIRE MOODIE: The Byron Bay resident was a certified diver at just 12 and has grown up filming sharks around the world. She's so outraged by WA's catch-and-kill policy, she's making it the focus of her latest production.

MADISON STEWART: The first time I've been in the water with a tiger shark in Australia was with a dead one south of Perth on a drum line. That shouldn't be happening in Australia. We have one of the last wild oceans left and we are destroying it.

CLAIRE MOODIE: Since the baited drum lines were set off the WA coast in January, activists have been rescuing sharks that are still alive and recording those that have either died on the hooks or been shot.

The activists' intervention hasn't been welcome. They were warned they were breaking the law during this recent incident off a Perth beach and later advised to hand over any video footage of the incident or face possible charges.

MADISON STEWART: I was told if I was to release any of the footage that I took from that day, that I would be going to court for obstruction.

CLAIRE MOODIE: Despite several fatal shark attacks off the WA coast in recent years, community opinion on the catch-and-kill policy has been divided.

KEN BASTON, WA FISHERIES MINISTER: I'm very surprised how many people are in love with sharks, quite frankly. I mean, at the end of the day, I value a human life far greater than a shark.

CLAIRE MOODIE: Thousands turned up to protests earlier this year, but today, the WA Government released the final results of the pilot program, hailing it a success.

COLIN BARNETT, WA PREMIER: There have been around 50 sharks caught along Perth and south-west beaches, 50 sharks over three metres in length, including recently one of 4.5 metres. So, the policy I think is restoring confidence in using our beaches.

CLAIRE MOODIE: But among the critics are scientists including Professor Jessica Meeuwig. She says the drum lines have failed to catch any great white sharks, the protected species believed responsible for most of the recent fatal attacks.

JESSICA MEEUWIG, UNI. OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA: They've exclusively caught tiger sharks, a species that hasn't been involved in a fatality in the south-west of WA in the last 90 years. So suggesting that removing large tiger sharks which haven't attacked anybody has somehow saved somebody is a logical fallacy.

CLAIRE MOODIE: Professor Meeuwig is among over 100 scientists who've expressed their opposition to the drum line policy.

JESSICA MEEUWIG: It's been a very expensive program and the safety outcomes are unclear and certainly the science outcomes are negative.

CLAIRE MOODIE: Dr Daryl McPhee of Queensland's Bond University agrees, but says research does show fatalities from tiger shark bites worldwide.

DARYL MCPHEE, BOND UNIVERSITY: There's about 65 to 70, from memory, unprovoked shark bites from tiger sharks over the last 30 years.

CLAIRE MOODIE: But he too believes taxpayers' money could be better spent on education.

DARYL MCPHEE: Perhaps we should really be focusing on is taking individual responsibility when we go into the water, not expecting a very large government investment in placating us.

CLAIRE MOODIE: Supporters of the drum line policy have pointed to the Queensland experience where drum lines and shark nets have been used for 50 years, with only one fatality in that time.

Undeterred by the backlash, the WA Government has applied to the Commonwealth for a three-year extension of its drum line program from November.

COLIN BARNETT: I think to this point the policy has been successful. It's reducing the threat, but it is only one part of a far wider program involving helicopter patrols, better equipment for surf clubs.

CLAIRE MOODIE: Conservationists and scientists intend to fight it. They've managed to galvanise mainstream opposition with an unrelenting social media campaign.

JESSICA MEEUWIG: There is evidence that when you remove sharks out of the ecosystem, fisheries decline, coral reef health decline.

CLAIRE MOODIE: Madison Stewart's most successful shark video so far has received about 60,000 hits. She's expecting a similar response when she defies authorities this week by uploading her latest production on WA's drum lines. She hopes it'll help stop the extension of the program from being approved.

MADISON STEWART: I'm not going to sit here and tell you sharks are harmless - that's not true - and I don't think that anyone should be ignoring the fact that they are dangerous predators. But that doesn't mean the cull is going to stop that.

SARAH FERGUSON: Claire Moodie reporting.