Shark nets don’t protect us. They never will

1 week ago 5

Opinion

September 7, 2025 — 2.46pm

Saturday’s shark tragedy at Dee Why Beach was horrific. Our hearts go out to the Psillakis family, friends and first responders. We cannot imagine the trauma they are experiencing and we wish them strength in their sorrow.

Surfer Mercury Psillakis lost his life after being bitten by a shark on Saturday near Dee Why.

Humane World for Animals’ priority is – and always has been – public safety. Saturday’s tragedy is a terrible reminder of the impact that a shark bite can have on an individual, a family and a community – the reverberations of which will be felt for a very long time.

It was also a reminder that our efforts to reduce the risk of such tragedies must be based on the latest scientific evidence, not an antiquated perception of what might work.

The NSW government is a world leader in implementing new technologies to reduce the risk of shark bite. Drone surveillance, listening stations, shark tagging, tracking and education programs have all been rolled out statewide over the past decade. There is a sound, evidential basis for these measures as a means to reduce the risk of shark bite.

What’s holding us back from being best practice in preventing such incidents is our continued use of shark nets.

Shark nets are not the enclosure nets in Sydney Harbour that readers might know and love at Forty Baskets or Northbridge. Shark nets are gill nets positioned 500m off ocean beaches from Newcastle, down across the Central Coast and Sydney, to Wollongong. At only 150 metres in length and installed on beaches that are often multiple kilometres long, they are not barriers. They are indiscriminate snares designed to entangle and drown wildlife.

There is no evidence that shark nets reduce the risk of shark bite, as the NSW government’s own scientists have repeatedly told them.

In fact, there is strong evidence the carcasses of sharks, rays and turtles pulled out of nets with large shark bites suggest that dead and dying wildlife attracts sharks closer to beaches.

A dolphin caught in the shark net off Bondi Beach.

It is inevitable that Saturday’s tragedy will complicate the conversation about a trial offered to Central Coast, Northern Beaches and Waverley councils to remove one net during this shark net season. All three councils have expressed their desire to participate and even acknowledge that the public and wildlife would be better served if all the nets in their jurisdictions were removed. Decisions are being made cooperatively between councils and the NSW government on which beaches the trial will take place at, though it now seems the trial will be delayed. This delay is a mistake.

In the aftermath of the tragedy at Dee Why – which is a netted beach — the community will no doubt feel fear, anger, confusion, anxiety and a need for action, just as any community that has faced this horror in the past has felt. These emotions could be partly assuaged with firm and clear leadership towards a long-overdue paradigm shift.

A shift toward the thinking that the best way to protect ourselves and our community is to approach the problem with logic and reason and to apply our advancements in knowledge and technology – a shift away from the thinking that killing marine wildlife 500 metres off our beaches will somehow send sharks away.

Removing all shark nets across NSW will not only benefit marine wildlife but will benefit public safety, freeing up millions of dollars in resources for more drone surveillance, extra beach patrols, additional tagging and tracking and more education.

Shark nets have never kept us safe, and they never will.

Lawrence Chlebeck is a marine biologist with Humane World for Animals Australia.