{"id":765045,"date":"2026-06-28T04:18:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T04:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/765045\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T04:18:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T04:18:15","slug":"nsw-beaches-to-get-dawn-to-dusk-drone-patrols-in-34m-anti-shark-program-new-south-wales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/765045\/","title":{"rendered":"NSW beaches to get dawn-to-dusk drone patrols in $34m anti-shark program | New South Wales"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shark-spotting drones will fly from dawn to dusk throughout the year at 70 beaches in New South Wales<\/a> under an expanded monitoring program, the state government says.<\/p>\n

The NSW premier, Chris Minns, said the $34m initiative would restore confidence to beachgoers after a series of shark sightings and attacks. They include one by a great white shark on Sydney mother Leah Stewart, who is no longer in a critical condition<\/a> following the attack at Coogee beach earlier this month.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile no one can ever promise no shark interactions, this investment is about putting more eyes in the sky so we can spot sharks earlier and give people a clear heads-up when they\u2019re in the water,\u201d Minns said on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The 70 beaches covered year-round from 1 July will include all 38 of Sydney\u2019s ocean beaches plus 32 in the rest of the state.<\/p>\n

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The expanded program also promises greater drone monitoring at other regional beaches, with daily flights from 1 December to 30 April, flights every weekend throughout the year, and extended daily flight hours.<\/p>\n

It will be carried out by Surf Life Saving NSW, which already undertakes drone surveillance, including an existing school holiday drone program along the coast.<\/p>\n

The organisation\u2019s chief executive, Steve Pearce, said drones were already an \u201cextremely effective component\u201d of the state\u2019s shark management program, \u201chaving this year alone identified and prevented over 2,000 sharks interacting with swimmers and surfers, and conducting over 100,000 flights\u201d.<\/p>\n

The funding will include trials of new artificial intelligence shark detection systems over summer that it is hoped will pave the way for automated flights.<\/p>\n

University of Sydney shark policy expert Associate Prof Christopher Pepin-Neff said the planned use of AI was a \u201cambitious and bold\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we need to be realistic about what drones can do and what they can\u2019t do,\u201d they said. \u201cWith more drones in the air, that is going to mean sharks are discussed a lot more across Australian beaches.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to treat the beach like the bush. It\u2019s the wild.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although coverage will not be limited to patrolled beaches, it will not take place at every beach in the state. The 70 beaches to benefit from year-round drone monitoring, including at least one beach in every coastal local government area, include those with the highest numbers of swimmers and surfers.<\/p>\n

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In Sydney, year-round drone monitoring will expand from 26 to all 38 ocean beaches, from Palm beach in the northern beaches to Cronulla in the south. Two SharkSmart listening stations in Sydney harbour will alert swimmers to tagged sharks.<\/p>\n

Following multiple attacks in the past 12 months, some fatal, the premier has resisted calls for a cull, including great white sharks, which are a protected species.<\/p>\n

Minns told Sky News on Sunday morning that \u201cthe distances these [white] sharks travel are massive\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like we can knock a few off and send a message to the rest of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pepin-Neff agreed. \u201cWhite sharks are pelagic, so they travel the entire ocean, they don\u2019t travel together,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cA white shark on Tuesday could be from New Zealand, and the white shark on Wednesday could be from Queensland \u2026 so doing a cull doesn\u2019t have any effect on them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Minns said it was \u201ca different situation for bull sharks\u201d \u2013 not a protected species \u2013 and the government was \u201clooking at all of those measures\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking particularly at an audit of the number of sharks in Sydney harbour.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Sunday morning, Minns told reporters he \u201ccan\u2019t rule out\u201d a cull of bull sharks if their numbers were higher than normal in the summer.<\/p>\n

Robert Harcourt, emeritus professor of marine ecology at Macquarie University, said analysis of long-term tagging of bull sharks showed there was \u201cno evidence in an increase of abundance\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is some evidence that sharks are coming down earlier and staying longer,\u201d said Harcourt. \u201cA cull is not a rational response to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Harcourt welcomed greater funding for drone monitoring, which he said was \u201cnot just about sharks, it also provides swimmer surveillance and everything else \u2026 to keep people safe from all hazards\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shark-spotting drones will fly from dawn to dusk throughout the year at 70 beaches in New South Wales…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":765046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-765045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=765045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/765046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=765045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=765045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=765045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}