Shark bites over the last two years have rocked the New South Wales surfing and ocean-going community and understandably, it’s left everyone asking what can be done about them. In response, the NSW Government have unveiled a substantial investment in drone patrols that will undoubtedly make our waters safer.  But while these will help, modern, effective technologies like drones and AI stand in stark contrast to archaic and ineffective shark...
Since recovery plans, conservation advice and management strategies have been implemented for shark and ray species listed as threatened under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) there have been no measurable improvements in their status.
They all remain threatened with extinction; none have been downgraded since being listed and several have had their threatened status upgraded by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). As a statutory 10-year review of the EPBC Act has recently been announced it is timely to consider how to make the next 10 years a decade in which the status of threatened sharks is dramatically improved.
