See what they did there?
See what they did there?
This coming Saturday 4th January 2014, six and a half thousand campaigners are expected at a rally on Cottesloe Beach, West Australia to protest Premier Colin Barnett’s decision to instigate a shark-culling policy in the state.
The decision has stoked clamorous protest among the public (embracing significant numbers of surfers, divers and swimmers), as well as by authoritative conservation bodies like Sea Shepherd. In an essay by the organization’s Australia MD Jeff Hansen http://bit.ly/1l42jfY it’s helpfully listed how many other things are more likely to kill us – including obesity, falling icicles, vending machines and ants. It’s also useful, by the way, in that it lists actions you can take to lodge your protest; it’s well worth a visit so please do it.
With the deadline for tenders to carry out the drum line-cull falling just one day after the protest on January 5th, Premier Barnett and acting Fisheries Minister Troy Buswell remain seemingly resolute in seeing the policy through. If it goes ahead, the programme will see 72 hooks deployed off two kill zones along eight beaches stretching between Quinns Beach to Warnboro, and Geographe to Margaret River.
Mr Buswell told media as long ago as 10 December 2013 via WAtoday.com.au that the official line was that the tender is seen by government as a “…targeted, localized hazard mitigation strategy”, while having previously conceded that scientific knowledge about shark behaviour and population sizes is scant, and that the were no guarantees of success.
Anti-cull pressure groups, meanwhile, claim such targeting is not viable. WA Greens Spokesperson Lynn Maclaren told reporters that WA “..shouldn’t be spending any state resources on this kill programme or on a drumline programme which is proven to have terrible by-catch figures.” http://bit.ly/19A3Zpc.
It will not have escaped the attention of observers that Colin Barnett’s support in Australia has plummeted to an all-time low, just nine months after his Liberal government decisively won a second term. If the embattled Burnett sees this contentious policy as low-hanging fruit to boost his public appeal, he might have badly miscalculated.
The stated aim of the cull is to ‘mitigate’ all Great White, Tiger and Bull Sharks over 3 metres in length. The Great White is famously a protected species in most parts of the world where they are indigenous – including Australia. A volte face like this one might well see Barnett’s government isolated by key trading partners like South Africa and the USA, and possibly liable to legal consequences as well.
Indeed, it has been proven a female great white shark travelled from Africa to Australia and back-a total of 12,400 miles in nine months (http://bit.ly/1g35cdl). The feat also set a second record: fastest return migration of any known marine animal. If the ANC government in South Africa can be persuaded to distract themselves from filtering taxpayers’ money to fund helipads on their sprawling home estates, might a case not be made for Australia first to prove the sharks they plan to kill are genetically proven to be Australian and not actually South African great whites? Britain nearly went to war with Iceland a generation ago over a comparable scenario in which British cod were being molested by fishing trawlers out of Reykjavik.
As far as support for the Australian cull is concerned, this seems to be confined to voters with a vested commercial interest in the WA tourist industry. Meanwhile, a report in theaustralian.com as recently as December 28th has a state Newspoll actually showing for the first time West Australians consider Labour leader Mark McGowan, would make a better premier.
So while the Premier sticks closely to the official line of human life being the overriding criterion here, it jars then to compare the rate of human attrition due to shark attack compared to that for homicide in the state. According to Western Australia Police Service verified crime statistics for 2011/2012 and 2012/2013 (latest statistics being available up to July 2013 with some coarse upweighting to bring the two 12-month periods up to comparable timelines), there are 91 homicides listed for the first 12-month period and 39 for the first half of 2013, extrapolated up to 83 for the second 6 months (http://bit.ly/1lCk17J). That makes a total of 174 deaths by human-on-human interaction, compared to six shark-on-human contacts. And a culprit might get away with the minimum term of seven years’ imprisonment (http://bit.ly/1l439tf pp 7-8).
In addition, the figures for human-on-human trauma grow exponentially with the inclusion of other misdemeanours like sexual assault, domestic assault and non-domestic assault.
It might help to contextualize a 7-year tariff for murder when compared to the fact that research shows us that the already slow-breeding great white takes an average of fifteen years to attain sexual maturity. Consider too that once this apex predator is gone, the drum liners and slaughtermen will soon simply be hired to decimate plague-levels of pinniped colonies that used to be kept in check by nature.
So, what effect might be expected after the Cottesloe Beach protest of December 4th 2014? Dare we hope that undeniable public dissatisfaction will sway the juggernaut of Liberal populist policy where science and logic have failed?
It isn’t likely, is it?
WA cull poll
Footnote – If the aforementioned ‘acting Fisheries Minister’ Troy Buswell were concerned about sticking his neck out to support the boss on this issue, it may be his fears were groundless, as the newswires now refer to Treasurer Troy Buswell. By coincidence, could it be another man by the same name or did Christmas come early for the bumbling Troy?