Dozens of beaches along Australia’s east coast, including in Sydney, were closed in January \u2060after four shark attacks in two days.<\/p>\n
Those followed heavy rain that created murky water, attracting sharks and reducing their visibility.<\/p>\n
While shark encounters remain statistically rare, a Reuters analysis of data from the Australian Shark Incident Database shows a gradual rise in encounters, with the country averaging nearly 29 incidents per year over the last decade, up from an average of roughly 16 per year in the 2000s.<\/p>\n
SHARK CULL<\/p>\n
The attack has forced a regulatory review of aerial surveillance.<\/p>\n
While emergency drones were deployed on Monday, Coogee normally faces strict flight restrictions because it sits directly beneath the flight path for Sydney’s airport.<\/p>\n
New South Wales Agriculture Minister Tara Moriarty said on Monday that it had been a really tough summer for shark activity, and nothing was off the table as the state considered safety measures. However, she said any action would prioritise technology, such as the drones.<\/p>\n
Some experts have said Saturday’s attack was by a white shark, classified as a vulnerable species and protected under environmental laws that make it illegal to target, capture, or kill the animal without approval. However, the attack has again led some to suggest a cull, a highly contentious issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so wrong that we don\u2019t cull sharks after attacks,\u201d former conservative Prime Minister Tony Abbott said in a video posted on his Facebook page.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dozens of beaches along Australia’s east coast, including in Sydney, were closed in January \u2060after four shark attacks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[23,1576,13877,247],"class_list":["post-31442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sydney","tag-australia","tag-beach","tag-shark","tag-sydney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31442","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=31442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}