Doreen Collyer

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s article “The Brutal Business of Shark Finning” reminds us that sharks play a key role in the ocean as both predators and scavengers.

The issue surrounding the Western Australian shark cull initiative will be the central topic of discussion in this critical essay. A rise in shark attacks in recent years has caused the Western Australian government to employ the Department Of Fisheries Western Australia to pursue a systematic and regulated cull of sharks. However the Greens – who are a political party and pressure group – are advocating for this cull to be stopped through lobbying.

Picture the beach, the golden sand and aqua water, the warm bright sun in the background, Imagine what is under the water, the aqua clear waters and the little fishes, but instead the ocean is full of nets capturing these harmless sharks. This is redicious to capture and kill these native Australian sharks. Shark culling has become the new issue for Australian media. Shark culling is not the answer for safer oceans.

WA Labor opposes to the cull and catching of sharks after an attack as the evidence does not suggest it will actually prevent shark attacks. The strategy is likely to result, in yet again, the death of other marine species including dolphins, turtles, and non-threatening shark species and may in fact increase the risk to swimmers by attracting sharks

Firstly I'd like to inform you on what the catch and kill policy actually is. It was a new policy introduced around January by the Western Australia Premier, Colin Barnett due to 6 fatal attacks by sharks in the past 2 years. Barnets plan to combat this is by killing off any sharks which exceed 3 metres long in

The issue of shark culling has recently surfaced in the media. The article ‘Proof still required that shark culling works’, written by Glenn Hyndes and published on abc.com, addresses the fact that there is no evidence that shark culling is beneficial for the public, yet the law has been used by the Western Australian Government. This article was written on December 12th 2013, when shark culling was discussed in the media, has a very passionate, logical and concerned tone towards the topic. Hyndes has written this article for an audience of people who think sharks are a danger, people who want to protect sharks and the Western Australian Government.

Is shark culling okay given the number of shark attacks that have occurred? Recently it seems that the number of shark attacks has increased with seven fatal attacks in the past 3 years in Western Australia (WA). These recent attacks have led the WA Government being granted an exemption to start culling sharks with a catch-and-kill shark program. A lot of people including scientists and surfers are against this controversial decision. For people to make an informed decision they need to have an understanding of where the shark fits into the marine ecosystem, as well as the reasons presented for the use of shark culling and the arguments given that oppose such extreme measures.

Whenever you go to the Fish and Chips shop, have you heard about “Flake”? Flakes are a type of shark. They have been killed just for us to eat. The price of them are also increasing. At least 100 million sharks are killed every year. In Eastern parts of Asia, Sharks were being culled for shark fin soup. Dragging out the sharks out of the ocean and cutting off their fins and throwing their dead body back into the ocean is unacceptable. How would you feel if we were dragged out of our home by a random person, got our arm cut off and got put back into our home again? I’m sure that we would all be horrified and terrified by this. It is said that Shark Fin Soup costs around $100 per bowl of soup. There are also some countries that have completely banned shark culling. They are Israel, Ecuador, Mexico, Egypt, Indonesia, Fiji and so on. It is very unfortunate that Australia isn’t a part of this. Sharks also help with ecosystems.

Barely any progress has been made over the years to replenish this dying breed considering the amount of sharks killed every year. Sharks may rule the ocean, but they are incredibly venerable species. Sharks grow slowly and produce few young, often one offspring in a female shark’s lifetime. With that being said, sharks are very susceptible to over harvesting. Over exploration is driving sharks to the brink of extinction, most populations are down by eighty percent. Tens of thousands, even millions, of sharks are killed each year and their meat, liver, fins, and other organs are harvested. Many fishermen are working for their own accord and they, more often than not, go unreported meaning catching and killing these creatures poses a significant threat to the shark

In Australia, sharks kill an average of three people every year. In Queensland 2017, to counter this, 667 sharks were culled to protect human’s safety on Australian beaches along with 100 accidental deaths of turtles, dolphins and dugongs. This was done with no scientific evidence to support that culling would work. All over the world 90% of shark species are threatened to become extinct with people killing 273 million sharks every year. This is why we must ban and make sure shark culling stops and never ever starts again. Shark culling is ludicrous, you have more of a chance dying from a coconut falling on you than a shark attack, coconuts actually kill 150 people every year does this mean we are going to kill all the coconuts? Here are a few arguments why shark culling must stop.

To this day, many of us still see them this way. In fact, coastal states stared to host shark culling events. In these sometime month-long events, a state government will pay any fishermen to bring in a freshly killed shark generous amounts of money. Peter Benchley, the author of "Jaws" doesn't support shark culling, he in fact helped raise awareness about sharks becoming endangered. He wrote articles about how misunderstood sharks are (Benchley, Peter). This is now illegal in the United States, but is still practiced in countries such as Japan and Australia. Even in those countries, shark culling is on its way out. But

In both 2009 and 2014 the strategies that had been used for those years seemed to be made up of good planning and processing but had poor inputs and outcomes. These results seemed to show that there had been no factual working developments to decrease the amount of extraction of top order predators in the Great Barrier Reef. The Great Barrie Reef Marine Park has put several restrictions up in order to try to prevent the amount of predators being extracted from the Great Barrier Reef these are known as zonings. By zoning sections of the reef people fishing in the reef are able to identify which area fishing is legal and illegal in thereby stopping fishing in zones of high abundance of important fish for the reef ecosystem and food chain. The idea of zoning is to achieve ecologically sustainability for the reef. Throughout the years the government has collaborated with fisheries to manage the amount of fishing takes place in certain areas as well as to make sure they have environmentally safe fishing practices. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority have set up certain measure in order to protect the predators of The Great Barrier Reef. Some of these measures include surveillance of the activities that take place in The Great Barrier Reef as well enforcement of regulations in certain zones of the reef. Though the strategies that have been put in place to protect The Great Barrier Reef’s marine life have been somewhat effective there will be no way of completely preventing the extraction of predators in The Great Barrier Reef. This is due to though zoning regulations have been put in place there are still private fishermen fishing outside of the regulated zones, as well as the extraction of predators can’t always be controlled for sometimes catching can be accidental while fishing for different fish. A prediction

Shark finning is popular in asia. They cut the fin off of the shark, and then throw the shark back in the water. Since sharks are being killed for just the fin, there are bans against finning. People also started just killing them after the movie Jaws came out(8). It pictured a Great White shark attacking people viciously. It upset people because it was based on a true story, but in the actual occurrence it was a bull shark that attacked the people not the Great White(8). There are many shark sanctuaries set up in the ocean to protect them. They can go there and live without having to worry if they will get caught in a net or get their fins cut off. In many countries there are bans on Great White Shark products. There are many projects in effect for protecting Great White Sharks(Institution, Smithsonian). Great white sharks are illegal to hunt because they are endangered. They also have a short life span of about sixty years, but very few make it to even thirty. There are many signs that say the great white population is increasing slowly but steadily(Institution,

It was an early Saturday morning for Bruce Rowan, a close family friend. It was 6:30 a.m. when he decided that he would go surfing, because that’s when the waves are the best. The forecast for Saturday April 14th, 2018 was looking like a clear day with minimal rain. A surfer couldn’t pass up this opportunity. He got to Lyford Cay Marina where everyone kept their boats, and unloaded the surfboards from his car and loaded them in his 22 foot boat. As he started his boat, and drove out of the marina, he started to get more and more excited as he could already see the big waves starting to break in the distance. He arrived to Love Beach, a popular tourist spot on the North West side of the island. Deciding where to anchor your boat is always a