• Lynn MacLaren: The Greens are challenging the shark cull. Photo by Jeremy Dixon

ONE of WA’s foremost shark authorities, author Hugh Edwards, has slammed the Barnett government’s kill-or-be-killed shark policy as “hamfisted”.

Responding to outrage over the first images of a dead shark caught off Dunsborough on Australia Day, Mr Edwards says all previous attacks have involved great whites.

Yet the three-metre animal caught this week was a female tiger shark, which the fisherman initially believed was a bull shark. Under the baiting policy due to be introduced to metropolitan waters, all three species are targets of baited drum lines anchored one kilometres offshore.

Mr Edwards, author of the 2013 book Shark: The Shadow Below, says dumping of the shark body at sea was also dumb when it could have been brought back for further study.

“Money has been spent in the wrong area and it has divided the community,” he says, calling instead for more research and protection systems such as Cockburn’s Coogee Beach nets.

Protests

Announcing the release of video they claim raises serious concerns over the fishermen’s expertise, Greens South Metro MLC Lynn MacLaren called on the government to cancel the contract awarded after the death of Chris Boyd, 35, killed while surfing the Umbies surfbreak off Gracetown.

She says the graphic images were an “awakening” for the community, which was largely opposed to the shark cull the Greens plan to challenge legally, and publicly.

Three protests are planned this weekend in Cottesloe, Mandurah and Meelup Beach where the tiger shark was caught.

 by CARMELO AMALFI