{"id":30626,"date":"2026-06-13T15:43:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T15:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/30626\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T15:43:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T15:43:12","slug":"long-reef-shark-victims-twin-deploy-drones-at-every-sydney-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/30626\/","title":{"rendered":"Long Reef shark victim\u2019s twin: \u2018Deploy drones at every Sydney beach\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The twin brother of a shark attack victim has implored the Minns government to urgently implement strengthened safety measures at all popular Sydney beaches, saying he fears further fatal incidents could occur if no action is taken. <\/p>\n

Mike Psillakis, the brother of shark attack victim Mercury<\/a>, 56, who was killed by a great white shark at Long Reef Beach in Sydney\u2019s north in September, said the latest incident at Coogee Beach<\/a> highlighted the need for drones to be deployed at every city beach across the state. <\/p>\n

\u201cDrones need to be used from sunlight to sunset seven days a week, 365 days a year,\u201d Mr Psillakis said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t afford to have any more attacks or lives lost. They (drones) need to be on every city beach, even in unpatrolled times, so warnings can be triggered a lot earlier. We need to protect human life, that\u2019s the number one priority.\u201d <\/p>\n

There were drones operating at 14 locations on Saturday \u2013 but not at Coogee<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The Sunday Telegraph revealed last month that the Minns government handed over $650,000 to Surfing NSW to dramatically enhance its aerial surveillance operations with 60 new drones and the training of 125 pilots. <\/p>\n

The drones are emblazoned with the message: \u201cIn loving memory of Mercury Psillakis\u201d. <\/p>\n

Mr Psillakis, a lifelong surfer who owns a surfboard business, said he urged the Minns government to take action, fearing Sydney tourism would also be impacted if more shark attacks occurred. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn recent months there has been a spate of attacks. This doesn\u2019t just affect surfers or swimmers, it impacts Sydney tourism,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Heroes pull woman from great white shark\u2019s jaws at Coogee Beach<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t afford for this to happen again.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstall the drones and operate them at every popular city beaches \u2026 or the attacks will keep occurring and it\u2019s a trend that won\u2019t go away.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whites are coming up now and this is the second white attack in Sydney within a year. \u201cIt\u2019s just ridiculous.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The twin brother of a shark attack victim has implored the Minns government to urgently implement strengthened safety…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4514,23,133,12629,28262,28261,24792,355,120,28264,5163,5166,28260,28263,247,28259,28258],"class_list":["post-30626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sydney","tag-aerial-surveillance-operations","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-city-beach","tag-city-beaches","tag-lifelong-surfer","tag-nathan-smith","tag-new-south-wales","tag-oceania","tag-popular-city-beaches","tag-shark-attack-victim","tag-shark-victim","tag-strengthened-safety-measures","tag-surfboard-business","tag-sydney","tag-twin-brother","tag-unpatrolled-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}