Baby whale dies in shark net

2005-08-02 13:45

Sydney, Australia - A baby humpback whale died on Tuesday after becoming entangled in a shark net off a popular tourist beach in eastern Australia, leaving its distressed mother circling the sunken body, a wildlife specialist said.

The death has resuscitated a debate between environmentalists and Queensland state government over the nets environmentalists say they are brutal and unnecessary, while state authorities argue they are needed to protect hundreds of thousands of swimmers each year from shark attacks.

Residents along Queensland's popular Gold Coast spotted the five-metre-long whale early on Tuesday and reported it to wildlife officials, who dispatched a rescue team to attempt to free the whale, said Trevor Long, a marine sciences specialist at the local theme park, Sea World.

But when the rescue team arrived, the whale had already drowned and its body had sunk to the bottom of the ocean, he said.

Divers were attempting to recover the body for routine medical tests, but the whale's mother was circling around the body and being "very possessive of the calf", said Long.

"This calf is in shallow water and the mother can clearly see it from the surface. She may stick around for some time," he said, adding that rescue workers were attempting to herd her away from the area to prevent her from also becoming entangled in the nets.

The Queensland government, which maintains 32 shark nets along 72 kilometres of beaches, says they are necessary to ensure the safety of beachgoers and do not pose an undue risk to marine species.

The nets are suspended between buoys about 300 metres offshore and stretch about 100 metres across and six metres deep. They catch large numbers of sharks and other large marine species as they swim toward the shore.

Tony Ham, the acting manager of Queensland's Shark Safety Programme, said only 25 whales have been caught in the nets since 1992, including 17 in the past five years, but most have been successfully freed.

"We've had four deaths including today's," Ham said.

A one-year-old whale was freed from the nets last week, and with an estimated 7 000 whales migrating past the Queensland coast each year, the deaths are "not even a statistical bump", he said.

However, environmental groups warn that as whale populations increase, the number of deaths from the nets will also rise.

"In the last five years, we've had four deaths," said Kate Davey of the Australian Marine Conservation Society.

"That's because whales are finally beginning to recover from the hunting that nearly decimated their populations."

Davey said large numbers of dolphins, manatees and turtles also get caught in the nets, which are unnecessary given the statistically small number of shark attacks on beaches without them.

"We can't just go and kill all of our wildlife because some of them pose a threat to us," she said. "It's an overreaction and this overreaction is causing the death of thousands of marine species every year."

- AP