SHARKS NEAR BEACHES

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 September 1934, Page 3

SHARKS NEAR BEACHES

500 NETTED IN SIX MONTHS SYDNEY, August 30. At a meeting of the Shark Menace Advisory Committee yesterday, a letter was read from a Sydney company, Shark Fisheries, Ltd., stating that, in netting operations from March last to date, the company, ini 75 hauls, had captured 507 sharks. The number caught in the various localities was: Palm Beach 13, Deewhy 11, Manly 1, North Head 7, Port Jackson 6, Bondi 9, Coogee 11, Maroubra 28, Long Bay 130, Botany Heads 40, Bare Island 93, Gibbon Point 19, Watamola 34, Perkins Bay (Port Kembla) 4. The letter explained that the method adopted was to set down the nets each evening and take them up next morning, and was an experiment to assess the possibilities of the shark fishing industry in Port Jackson, and for approximately 15 miles north and south of the harbour. Several novel suggestions were put before the committee to combat the shark menace. One man outlined a scheme as follows:—“Observation balloons to be stationed above the surf; upon the appearance of a shark electric alarm bells to be rung to warn bathers to leave the water; a section of A.M.F. artillery to be stationed at each beach with light howitzers, mortars, or other high-trajectory guns; the observers to communicate the position of the shark by telephone; projectiles with a delayed fuse to be fired at the sharks; and all fish killed to he netted immediately and taken from the water.” The committee decided to reject the proposal. Another writer said he had had longexperience in sailing and had noticed that sharks never attack the crews of capsized sailing craft. He assumed that sharks feared white sails, fie suggested that white canvas, or similar material, perforated so as to allow the waves to keep it in motion, should be placed in the surf and kept in position by floats. This, he said, would frighten the sharks away. The committee also rejected this plan. It also rejected a suggestion to use a bicycle frame on two floats, to form a means of patrol in the surf.

COOGEE NET. Frank O’Grady, surf sheds manager for the Randwick Council, gave evidence about the Coogee surf net, of which, he said, he was the inventor. He said that the total cost of installing the net was £3700. It was set. up in November, 1929, and the cost of upkeep each year, since then, apart from overhead expenses, was £3OO, £3OO, £3OO. £560, and £2OO respectively. The revenue from the netted enclosure during the first year was about £3OOO, collected in pennies, but each year since then it had decreased, and last year it was about £llOO. The net had withstood severe gales, but occasion-' ally it had to be mended. chiefly owing to abrasion from the rocks at one end. The committee adjourned.