Queensland\u2019s premier said the state is \u201cnot for turning\u201d on its plan to expand shark netting, and won\u2019t put protecting whales \u201cat the expense of one single human\u201d.<\/p>\n
A mother and baby humpback were discovered trapped in shark netting near Rainbow Beach on Saturday, the eighth and ninth whales to become entangled in nine days<\/a>.<\/p>\n Queensland\u2019s premier, David Crisafulli, announced an expansion of the program in May<\/a>.<\/p>\n A KPMG report on the state\u2019s shark control program had recommended the state government trial removing shark nets<\/a> during whale migration season from April to October, as is done in New South Wales.<\/p>\n But on Sunday Crisafulli said he was \u201cnot for turning\u201d on the plan, and that the government had already announced its response to the KPMG report.<\/p>\n He said the state government would do \u201call we can to protect environmental lives as well\u201d.<\/p>\n Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWe will do everything we can to be good environmental stewards, but it\u2019s not going to come at the expense of one single human. We just won\u2019t, and I\u2019m not for turning on that,\u201d Crisafulli said.<\/p>\n Premier David Crisafulli said \u2018the life of one child on one beach anywhere in this state, is worth everything to me\u2019 Photograph: Russell Freeman\/AAP<\/p>\n Queensland is one of three jurisdictions in the world to use shark nets. The state also employs drum lines, which bait sharks on to a baited hook.<\/p>\n The NSW government recently paused a rollback of its shark net program after a fatal shark attack in Sydney<\/a>.<\/p>\n Crisafulli said the state would be rolling out more protection for swimmers \u201cand we\u2019ll do it as environmentally sensibly as we can but, but the life of one child on one beach anywhere in this state, is worth everything to me\u201d.<\/p>\n According to Humane World for Animals, about five in six animals trapped in Queensland\u2019s shark nets are not target shark species.<\/p>\n There have been 131 whales, 298 turtles and 327 dolphins trapped in them since 2001.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n There have been 11 whale entanglements this year associated with the shark control program, according to the conservation group, compared with eight whales last year, and 11 in 2023.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the department of primary industries said the latest entangled whales had been released.<\/p>\n The department of primary industries deputy director-general of fisheries, Pauline Jacob, said \u201cinterference from two scuba divers unfortunately made the entanglement worse,\u201d complicating attempts to release the whales.<\/p>\n Humane World for Animals marine biologist Lawrence Chlebeck said the entanglement could have done serious long-term damage to the two whales, on their long journey to Antarctica.<\/p>\n He said there was no basis for the argument that shark nets protect swimmers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queensland\u2019s premier said the state is \u201cnot for turning\u201d on its plan to expand shark netting, and won\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-188359","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}