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[man 1] Good evening, a great white shark has been hunted, caught

and killed after a horrifying attack near Mandurah.

The shark was hooked on drumlines off Falcon

and towed out to sea,

but there's no confirmation

it was the shark that attacked the surfer.

[Eric Bana] Our whole lives, we've been taught to fear them.

Good evening, two surfers have been injured.

-A shark attack. -Multiple attacks.

-Bitten by a shark. -Mauled by a shark.

[Bana] Monsters, murderers, man-eaters.

-Shark attack. -Shark attacks.

-A shark attack. -Two shark attacks.

[man 1] Terror in the shallows.

[Bana] But what if we've been taught wrong?

What if the very thing you were taught to fear

had more to fear from us?

-Great white... -[man] Shark attack...

-A great white... -Shark attack.

-[woman] Two shark attacks. -Bitten by a shark.

[Bana] What if we knew we had a greater chance of being killed

by almost any other animal on Earth

than by one of nature's oldest and most evolved species?

-Bitten by [inaudible]. -Shark attack.

[indistinct conversations]

[Bana] What if our ignorance is about to wipe them out?

Not in 100 years, not in 50 years.

This generation. Right now.

They can't speak for themselves.

So we must be their envoy.

[mellow theme music playing]

[Layne Beachley] I feel that one of the greatest ways

that we can overcome our fear of the unknown is get to know it.

One of the greatest ways

I've been able to reduce my fear of sharks,

is swimming with them.

Getting to understand their gentle, curious nature,

it was one of the most beautiful things

I ever had to do

was just actually sit underneath a bull shark

and watch it gracefully glide around over the top of me,

it was just so beautiful.

I never ever have experienced a fear of a shark since then.

[Juan Oliphant] So pretty much, you know, raised in Hawaii

since I was two.

You know, I had seen them as a lot as a kid, you know, spearfishing,

and I still was really, really kind of a afraid of them.

But it wasn't until I had a really bad accident where I broke my back.

And it left me paralyzed for almost a good portion

of three or four months and the remedy that really,

that made the healing process get better was the diving.

And so now I was getting engaged in diving,

like almost every day trying to get my back to normal.

And the interactions with sharks were a little bit more consistent,

and they were far, far, far

from what I was told what I saw on TV, you know,

and they were more scared of me than I was of it

and that kind of like, created this passion

and desire to want to learn more.

It's that fear of the unknown, you know, for most people,

and then you have other people trying to fill in the gaps

with that lack of information.

[waves splashing]

So I think a lot of the public fear all has to do with fear of the unknown.

It's that dark basement, or what you can't see in the water,

and the more we understand about sharks

and their motivations and the behaviors,

the more that fear just dissolves away.

I've been with HSI for almost two years now,

I'm a marine biologist and ocean campaigner.

There's been this massive divide lately between science

and between what's been accepted or what's taken as fact.

And I think just as important as pushing forward

our knowledge and continuing to do science and research,

it's important to bridge that gap.

There's something about, you know, when you're 20 meters underwater,

and you're sitting there with the sharks, they come past you

and their eye swivels around and definitely looks at you.

There's that awareness there.

And it's so calming and quite lovely.

Part of my mission and a lot of scientists out there

and conservationists, and even people who just love sharks

and just love talking about the them,

is to really sell the truth of it.

We've got over 320 odd species of sharks

and Rays in Australia.

You know, half of them aren't found anywhere else in the world.

And the go to species that everyone thinks of

are your tiger sharks, great whites,

are your whale sharks, which are amazing,

and incredibly beautiful in their own right.

But there's also these other species that were just...

the majority people I don't think are aware of.

I grew up in the ocean, and I got to see sharks

for what they naturally were,

which is absolutely beautiful and fascinating.

And as I grew up, I realized how important they were.

I went to school for marine biology.

And as I traveled around the world

and worked around the world, I realized that people

had a very heavy damaging misconception of them,

and that they're actually the real victims

and the ones that have something to fear.

I think for a very long time,

people didn't know very much about sharks.

So it's very easy to be afraid of them,

you're afraid naturally of something that you don't know.

[Holly Richmond] When you see sharks under the water,

they're just so majestic

and actually a lot more scared of us

than what you know what we typically are of them as well.

So getting to know sharks under the water

is probably the best way to meet sharks

and understand them.

There was this moment when I was about 15 years old,

and I was diving with two really big tiger sharks.

And it was just amazing, it was late in the afternoon, the light was beautiful,

and then suddenly they disappeared.

So there's this is anticipation,

and all of a sudden out of the corner of this

great hammerhead swims through,

the middle of the water column,

and its head was as wide as I was tall.

And at first I thought it was a whale, it was that big.

And this creature, this massive creature

that I had been kind of taught by society my entire life to be scared of,

just passed through and didn't even pay attention to me

and it was one of the greatest things

I had ever seen in my entire life.

[waves splashing]

I grew up on the Gold Coast I've been here my entire life.

It's been home.

And I feel like when I was a kid,

I was the only person looking out to sea,

seeing the shark nets and drum lines

and thinking what on earth is going on here?

[Jonathan Clark] When I got involved in the chapter in Brisbane,

I didn't have a lot of knowledge about nets and drum lines.

I was probably typical of a lot of the population.

[Tom Carroll] I learned to surf on this beach, in that water

starting around seven years of age.

To be honest I've never even thought about the shark nets.

I used to use the buoys to paddle around

when we were doing a lot of open ocean paddling.

[Holly] I've been assisting Humpback Whale Research

for the past four years, and particularly on the east coast of Australia,

humpback whales are becoming entangled in shark nets.

And that sparked my interest with shark nets

and exactly what are they and what are the aims

and the methods of this program?

So I basically took the initiative to go out there

and get a view for myself of exactly

what's happening beneath the surface.

The biggest misconception that people have

towards the Shark Control Program

is that a lot of people think

that it's a physical barrier between them

and the open ocean.

People aren't aware that this device is a fishing device,

it's there to capture and to kill passing sharks

and I think a lot of people are surprised

when they realize that it's not a physical barrier

that is completely enclosed

or it doesn't touch the bottom of the ocean.

[Bana] Bright buoys visible from the shore in the air,

draw a line through the ocean,

between the comfort of the shallows and the mystery of the deep.

Not many people know exactly what they are,

or how they work, just told that it keeps them safe.

Even fewer people know the truth.

[man 2] Australian beaches renowned for their long unbroken

surf line and clean white gold sand

are among the most beautiful in the world.

This lovely beach is a typical example.

[Bana] Shark nets were first introduced off the east coast

of Australia in 1937,

with drumlines following soon after.

It's the very same decade Qantas first started flying

between Australia and London.

Flights could fit just ten passengers,

had 21 stopovers, and took a total of 12 days.

Our world has evolved beyond recognition since then,

but shark nets and drumlines have stayed fundamentally the same.

Shark nets in Queensland are 186 meters wide by six meters,

hang from the surface, and sit in water 12 meters deep.

Shark nets in New South Wales are 150 meters by six meters

are anchored to the sea floor, also in water 12 meters deep.

Both programs cover only a tiny portion

of any given beach,

allowing sharks ample opportunity to swim over,

under, around, and towards beaches.

In fact, a high percentage of sharks

are caught inside the nets.

They've already been to the beach,

and are peacefully making their way back out to sea.

Drumlines use a large buoy on the surface

to suspend a baited industrial fishing hook

dangling below on heavy duty chains.

They chum the waters, attracting sharks,

in the hopes of hooking them.

If anyone in a snorkel and fins can navigate

around this technology,

why would we think that sharks can't?

People think that shark incidents are happening

at a higher rate than what they really are.

Being bitten by a shark is extremely unlikely.

Unfortunately, when there is a shark bite incident,

the media jump onto this

and they report it over and over again.

There's a rogue shark out there,

the Jaws mentality, right?

That it's got to taste for human blood,

and it's not gonna stop until you know,

so it's just like that kind of mentality,

it's so false, and it's like a lie basically,

you know, when it comes down to it.

[woman 1] When I've seen or heard on the news that there was

a shark attack, my heart fully sinks

and it's a really terrible feeling because

one, you know, that someone's just been through something traumatic

and the media has taken advantage of that.

And two, you know that that means bad news for sharks.

[woman 2] Trauma and sensationalism sells.

And so for generations now, the media has capitalized off

of demonizing them.

[Dr. Leonardo Guida] Drone footage is now coming out,

particularly from New South Wales,

and the photography is awesome.

I mean, the colors, shapes, and you see surfers

and you see the silhouette of a shark in the water

and the headline is "Shark stalks surfer".

And it's like, no, the sharks just doing its thing.

It probably hasn't even seen the surfer.

[Jonathan] The number of times that negative language

about sharks is repeated for every shark bite incident.

The number of reports is astounding.

The average is in the 30s.

[Lawrence Chlebeck] But the media will report on them

because these incidents can be tragic.

They can be traumatic.

We hear words like maul, man eater, attack,

but more accurately,

these interactions are classified as just that, interactions.

It's a bump or an investigative bite.

We all understand that those bites can be very tragic

and traumatic, but it's very, very rarely,

and almost never, an actual attack.

And that feeds into the public psyche, of what they think.

They think the sharks are out there hunting them.

And that's really not at all what's happening.

[Ocean Ramsey] The tolerance that sharks show for humans

being such capable predators as they are,

it never ceases to astonish me

and people don't give them credit for that.

They swim past surfers, swimmers, and divers

all day, every day.

And it's so rare that they make a mistake.

You think about how many mistakes humans make.

And it's just... I wish that they got that credit,

and that made the news,

because that's something that happens every day,

and not the extremely rare mistaken identity bite.

I used to be terrified of sharks.

Uh, I didn't really know anything about them

except for what the media told me

and that was always gnashing teeth

and blood and fear.

And so I fed into that.

In 2005, I ended up passing a selection course

for the Navy clearance divers

and started a whole new career,

and I didn't just find my dream job,

I found my dream life.

In 2009,

I had been a clearance diver for about four years,

and every single time, honestly, I got in the water,

I had sharks on the brain.

Even though sharks terrified me,

I had a focus to get that out of my mind.

I was swimming in the water on the surface

right in Sydney Harbor, right alongside the Navy base.

And I was on my back, on the surface,

kicking my legs, doing what we call finning.

I was facing the other direction,

making sure I was headed towards the warship

where I was supposed to be going

and I felt this massive whack in my leg.

And I turned back around and came face to face

with a massive shark's head and I didn't know what to do.

I'd never even seen a big, dangerous shark before.

And then all of a sudden, it's attached to me.

My survival instincts kicked in.

I thought I've got to get this thing off me.

But I couldn't move my arm

because my hand was in its mouth.

And so I grabbed it by the nose

and I tried to lever it off my leg

but all that did was push the teeth of the lower jaw

deeper into my leg.

So in a last ditch effort,

I cocked back to punch it in the nose,

and it started to shake me

and I can't even tell you how painful this was.

It took me underwater,

and I wasn't just in pain, I was terrified.

This was my worst nightmare. And I thought I was gonna die.

The shark's tail splashed water into my face

and kind of shook me back to reality.

And I realized, "Oh, I'm not dead."

And I thought I've gotta get back to the safety boat.

So my laser-like focus,

all that navy training and army training kicked in.

My sole entire mission was to get back to that boat.

As soon as the guys pulled me into the boat,

I just relaxed.

Just for the simple fact that I was safe,

my eyes rolled back in my head and I passed out,

and my mate Tommo sprang into action.

And his medical training told him

that I was going into cardiac arrest.

And so he straddled me and started pummeling me in the chest

trying to stimulate my heart to wake me back up,

and it worked.

And I woke up, and I looked over,

and my hand was gone.

And I looked up,

and Tommo was beating the crap out of me.

And I just thought, "Today sucks."

After the shark attack,

the media was coming to me

to talk about shark interactions all around Australia.

And so I had to learn,

so that I knew what I was talking about.

I can give an educated opinion instead of just an opinion.

And through doing that research

and building that knowledge on sharks,

I started to learn about the plight of sharks,

about how much strife they're in,

about what we do to them.

And the old adage goes, knowledge dispels fear,

and that was so true for me.

[Jonathan] The title of the program in New South Wales

is the Bather Protection Program.

There is the underlying message,

"We're the government,

and we are keeping you safe from this big, scary thing."

In Queensland,

we call it the Shark Control Program.

I defy anyone to control a shark.

How do you control

one of the greatest animals in the ocean?

How do you do that?

[Dr. Leonardo] So the Shark Control Program in Queensland,

and I hate using the word "Control",

because you cannot control an animal.

But for the lack of a better phrase,

the Shark Control Program in Queensland as it stands,

its intention is to kill sharks, to cull them.

My first time swimming with a tiger shark

was on a drumline on the Gold Coast,

and she was

literally taking her last breaths in front of us.

She been hanging there for quite some time.

Uh, probably early hours in the morning

and she was suffocating on this drumline

and I was able to get really close to her

and I couldn't...

Looking at the details of this animal was insane,

the patterns on their skin.

And people always refer to shark's eyes

to be lifeless and soulless and dark and black.

But looking at her eyes, they were light colored brown

and they were so beautiful and deep.

You could be looking into the eyes of a turtle

or your own dog at home.

That moment really made me

feel connected to these animals

and made me realize that...

they're just crying for help,

and we're just endlessly killing them out there.

I've seen multiple tiger sharks hooked on drumlines.

In fact, the first one that I ever saw in Australia

was hooked on a drumline,

and it was very difficult for me to film

because I got in the water with it thinking it was dead,

but then its eye was still moving,

so it was just this animal that I'd always associated

with such power and presence in the ocean.

And it was just like laying there, dead.

It was like going into your yard

and seeing your own pet dog hooked up on a drumline.

Most people talk about getting in the water with sharks for the first time

and their hands are sweaty and their heart's racing and they're freaking out.

That's exactly how I felt when I got out of the water

after filming a dead one.

My heart was racing, my hands were sweating.

It was terrifying.

It was the only time I've been in the water with a shark

that I was truly unable to control my reaction.

Seeing that animal dead on a drumline was really sad

and really horrific.

And the saddest thing about all of it

is living in a country

where people kind of rooted that on

and wanted that to happen,

and in their eyes, that was a good thing.

[Bana] For 83 years and counting,

we've been running the world's longest marine cull.

These culling programs off Australian shores

add to the millions of sharks killed globally each year.

However, unlike the fishing industry,

these culling programs specifically aim

to kill some endangered and protected species.

Like the Great White.

Unlike regular fishing,

there are no size limits in these culls.

Making juveniles, who haven't reached breeding age yet,

fair game,

decimating an already threatened population

in the name of safety.

[Paul] I understand that parents and surfers

and everyone that frequents the beach in Australia

wants to remain safe.

I don't want anyone to get attacked either. Trust me, it hurts.

I don't want anyone getting hurt.

I don't want anyone dying.

The problem that I have

with the culling of sharks around Australia is that...

it's not a solution by any means.

It's a false sense of security at best,

which is only lulling people more into the ocean

to risk their lives.

The nets that they have around Australia,

especially Queensland and New South Wales,

they don't go to the bottom of the ocean,

they don't go to the top of the water,

they don't span the whole beach.

The sharks can swim around it, over it, and under it,

and there's nothing stopping them

from getting to the beach.

Now I understand they've put them in there

to maybe take out a few of the sharks

that are hanging around,

but sharks don't domesticate one area, they migrate.

These sharks that are swimming through Australian waters,

especially the Great Whites that we're killing,

they don't belong to Australia.

They'll swim... They've been known to swim all the way to Hawaii.

They swim all the way down the coast,

all the way down to New Zealand.

They interbreed down there.

They swim back up the coast, they follow the whales,

they follow the fish.

They're the ocean sharks. They're the world's sharks.

They're not Australia's property to kill.

And this is what happens

when you have government ministers

running departments

that they have no education in,

no background in,

and don't know what they're doing.

They just pander to the loudest common denominator.

And that's usually the people

calling for the death of animals, especially sharks.

So anecdotally, what you hear from a lot of people

that are out on the water a lot, from fishermen, and such,

is that sharks are in plague proportions.

And what we need to remember that these are very intelligent animals

that have an ecological feeding plasticity

that can change their behavior and follow this salmon run here

or go over here when they need to.

They've been around for 350 million years

perfecting the ability to change their behavior

for high success feeding opportunities.

And now fishermen and fishing boats

provide that high success feeding opportunity.

So the fact that there's a massive decline of sharks

and that fishermen are seeing many of them around their boats

are not mutually exclusive.

Fishermen can see many, many sharks around their boats

because they know that this is where they can get an easy feed.

However, shark scientists everywhere around the world,

including the east coast of Australia,

will tell you that sharks are dwindling.

Sharks are in major decline and have been

for about the last 50 to 60 years.

[Jonathan] We know that the general population of sharks

has been in great decline,

and there is science absolutely backing that.

We know that tiger sharks on the Queensland coast

since 1962,

the science is saying around about 73% decline,

which is absolutely massive.

Hearing numbers like 70 to 100 million sharks are killed every year.

And the big one that got me was that in 30 years,

we've killed 90-95%

of the world's shark population.

In 30 years, like...

What's gonna happen in another 30 years?

They're gone, right?

You know, when you hear those kind of numbers,

you're like, "Whoa, what? You know, rewind."

[Bana] Programs like this are a global anomaly.

Only two other countries on earth

operate culling programs, South Africa and France.

That's it.

Everywhere else in the world, it's understood.

Their home, your risk.

There's another chain of islands

all alone in the middle of the Pacific Ocean

that is confronted by these very same challenges.

A paradise where sharks

carry a strong cultural significance,

held sacred by many families

as their ancestral spirit guides.

Traditionally respected but not feared.

Hawaii.

It's so sad and unfortunate

that even in Hawaii, um, multiple decades ago,

they actually culled sharks,

some of the methods being nets or drumlines.

And it was scientifically documented in study

to show that it does nothing to reduce the number

of adverse interactions.

And so we've scientifically proven that culling is not effective

and can actually attract sharks closer to shore.

[Juan] Back in '91, there was a series of mistaken identity bites,

so about seven.

And no fatalities,

but it was within, like, a three-month span.

So the community, especially here on the North Shore of Oahu,

was really concerned,

and it kind of sparked a cull, you know, and...

I was just a kid at the time, but it was a scary time.

It was just the fear throughout the community,

and it's probably similar to in certain parts

what's going on in Australia right now,

but it was really sad.

I mean, they killed...

I think that estimated at the time that they were done

in that year period, they killed over 500 tiger sharks.

So it was really bad.

The really nice thing about that period though,

a scientist named Carl Meyers was doing a study on it.

And he proved that culling was actually not effective.

And in fact, when you take out a large apex predator

like a tiger shark,

which is a very territorial animal and nomadic species,

you're actually reducing that area

to allow more smaller juvenile sharks.

And the larger sharks are actually a lot more knowledgeable

about what's a food source, what's not a food source.

So in essence, you're bringing these teenagers in

that are still trying to figure out what's going on.

And those are the ones making the mistakes,

not these big, large, beautiful females or adult tiger sharks,

and so it was making the situation worse

by killing the large sharks.

So growing up with that fear,

it's so interesting to see where I'm at today,

you know, and my whole life kind of feels like

it's been about protecting an animal that I grew up

so petrified of.

[Ocean] And so we've used that research

to try and push, and more so the community and conservation efforts,

to push, to ban the purposeful killing of sharks and rays.

And, um, in the last few years,

this push for protection for sharks

has been met by some opposition

at different levels.

The first level was financially.

Could they actually enforce the law?

We address that through support,

through ecotourism.

And so actually taking a very small percentage of money

from people who want to go see a live shark

and that could easily fund that bill.

So it's really...

It's tough working in the political systems,

but it is possible, and every year,

the number of people in support of these bills is growing.

[Bana] Until now, these programs have operated under a veil of secrecy.

They have successfully avoided intense scrutiny from the public eye.

Some politicians are adamant

that these programs keep swimmers safe,

citing the low number of fatalities at beaches where culling occurs.

But has it really saved human lives

by killing hundreds of thousands of sharks?

The Great Barrier Reef. An Australian icon.

So remarkable you can see it from space.

The jewel in our marine crown.

It is the world's largest coral reef ecosystem,

home to thousands of unique species.

It's one of the best known natural wonders of the world,

already under threat

from warming and acidifying oceans.

It's important to know how critical sharks are

to keeping this fragile ecosystem alive

and just how dangerous it could be to remove them.

[Dr. Leonardo] Austrians love the Great Barrier Reef.

I mean, intuitively, instinctively.

You know you can feel it. I'm thinking it right now.

I just say Great Barrier Reef and I'm like,

"Yes, Australia."

But how to articulate that into words...

I think that's actually the beauty of it.

The fact that you can't really articulate it.

It's magical and mystical.

I think that's why people love the Great Barrier Reef,

and when you do get a chance to see it,

I mean, aside from pictures and videos...

When you do get a chance to see it,

it's mind blowing.

The Great Barrier Reef Outlook Report 2019

is a report that's done every five years.

And it assesses the health of the Great Barrier Reef,

uh, the pressures, the challenges it faces,

the gaps in our knowledge,

and also it gives a bit of a projection of its likely future.

Unfortunately,

the latest report has downgraded the Great Barrier Reef

from being in poor health to very poor health.

It identified as a key threat

to the resilience and health of the reef

uh, the removal of predators, top-level predators,

and that includes your sharks,

and there's an issue with some species

uh, that are under considerable threat.

[Holly] Sharks play a vital role in an ecosystem.

And by taking out sharks off the Great Barrier Reef,

we're gonna see dramatic effects

so we're gonna see impacts

on even the lowest of levels with corals

and the amount of algae that grows on the corals.

[Dr. Leonardo] If we take out the sharks,

your middle fish explode in numbers,

and these middle fish are sometimes herbivores,

so they might eat the algae off coral,

munch on the coral or animals around the coral.

And if their numbers essentially grow unchecked,

then all of a sudden, the coral is experiencing

a lot of pressure it otherwise wasn't under.

Then, the herbivores have got nothing left to eat,

and then they kind of fall apart.

The sharks actually perform

more than just a predatory role.

Uh, it's quite complex how they work

for an ecosystem.

Um, Sharks also modify

the behavior of other animals in the system.

So a great example,

looking at tiger sharks and dugongs,

what the tiger shark does is it comes into an area.

The dugong is happily munching away on seagrass

around a reef ecosystem, a coastal ecosystem,

a seagrass meadow or wherever.

It's happily munching away,

getting its fill, not a care in the world.

The moment it senses or notices

a tiger shark in the area,

all of a sudden it's on its toes.

Um, it stops eating,

and it might dart off somewhere else

and eat a little bit there,

'cause it's now more concerned about being eaten itself

than eating seagrass.

So seagrass actually stores more carbon than rainforests.

What the tiger shark is doing

by modifying or changing the behavior of the dugong,

one, it's looking after the little guys,

so these fish can grow up

and venture out into the ocean,

and two, it's helping us fight climate change.

So the tiger shark protecting the seagrass,

it's ensuring that we have a good carbon store.

[Holly] We can't just take one species

or one type of animal out of an ecosystem

and expect the rest to function normally.

It all interlinks with each other

and taking the sharks out,

you're actually gonna have a really big impact

on the coral reef and that impacts our tourism in Australia.

We have a lot of people

that wanna see the Great Barrier Reef,

but by taking sharks out of that ecosystem,

it's not gonna be the same.

[Dr. Leonardo] We've had some studies come out that show

that having sharks on the reef

boosts not only the kinds of fish you find there

but just the absolute numbers of fish

by having sharks there.

And it's one of the reasons why reef areas

are particularly popular with fishers,

both commercial and recreational,

'cause there are a lot of fish,

and the sizes of fish are reasonably decent.

And to have that support on a reef ecosystem,

you need sharks.

[Madison Stewart] So when I was about 12 years old,

I did my first ever trip to the Great Barrier Reef.

And there was this one spot where my dad and I

would get in the water for a night dive.

And we'd wait for the divers to leave

and we'd stay under the boats 'cause the boats had these big floodlights

that would bring all the little fish around

and then all the sharks would come around to eat these little fish.

So there was about 20 to 30 little Grey Reef Sharks

behind the back of the boat.

And I used to do this thing where I would breathe

really heavy in my SCUBA equipment

and accelerate my heart rate.

And the sharks would pick up on that,

and they would come in and start, like, buzzing me and getting all excited.

And that was like this little game I played with them.

It was the first time that I really had an amazing connection with sharks.

But the very next year, I came back to that same spot,

the same reef, the same dive, same time of year,

and there were no sharks there.

There was like one shark in the distance

too scared to come close to the light.

And that for me kind of woke me up a little bit.

And when I turned 14,

I really started to focus on things

that were happening in my own backyard,

which was the Great Barrier Reef where I grew up diving,

and I had no idea that there were things

threatening what I always thought was a Marine Park.

Queensland...

They're just killing sharks.

They've got drumlines

in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

One of the seven natural wonders of the world.

We're not just fishing it and wiping it out.

We're not just coral bleaching it

and wiping it out.

We're killing the doctors of the reef.

The animals that keep the whole ecosystem in check.

Now what does that tell you

about the future of our Great Barrier Reef

in our Australian waters?

[Bana] As politicians debate human lives versus shark lives,

protecting our ocean versus tourism dollars,

there is something we've all been missing.

One simple question in this whole culling debate

that has only very recently been asked.

Is it even legal?

[Lawrence Chlebeck] So a few years back,

the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority issued a permit

for Queensland's Agriculture and Fisheries

to operate 173 lethal drumlines

within the boundaries of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

So we had a look at that permit and we realized

that allowing the lethal take of apex predators

within a World Heritage Area,

Great Barrier Reef Marine Park,

was in direct violation

of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park's mandate

to protect the ecological viability of the reef.

We had a look at that permit, and we're trying to investigate

if there was any legal recourse we could take to challenge that.

So we called our good friends, the Environmental Defenders Office,

we attempted to find a middle ground

with Queensland Fisheries and were unable to do so.

And that's when we learned

that within the bounds of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal,

we would be able to challenge that permit.

In court, we built our argument around two facets.

The first of which is that removing apex predators

from a World Heritage Area and protected ecosystem

is not a good way to protect that ecosystem.

And second of all, and probably most importantly,

is that shark culling has no impact on swimmer safety.

The Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries'

own expert witness admitted on the stand

that if the lethal component

of the Shark Control Program was ended tomorrow,

it would have no impact on swimmer safety.

We got a ten minute heads-up from our lawyers

that the decision was coming down.

And so it's ten minutes of stressful waiting,

and then, when we finally get the document and we're reading through it,

not completely understanding the technical jargon,

and then we're all coming at the same time slowly to this realization,

holy [inaudible], we won.

Sharks caught on drumlines will no longer be killed

but tagged and released

following a significant court win

by environmentalists.

While the ruling is limited to the Great Barrier Reef for now,

experts want the decision expanded.

[Lawrence] The tribunal found the evidence

that shark culling had no scientific basis

and had no proof to be reducing the risk of shark bite,

and that this program

was negatively impacting the health of the Great Barrier Reef.

They found evidence to those points to be, quote, "Overwhelming".

And in any other circumstance,

this would have been a Hollywood mic drop,

end-of-the-movie moment.

[Dr. Leonardo] The Queensland government's reaction,

I don't know how to describe it.

It seemed very odd.

There's an opportunity to move forward, and...

they stalled.

We need to ensure that we're putting people before sharks.

[man 1] The government agrees, announcing its plans to appeal.

[man 2] We will always put human life first.

The community expectations, uh,

that their beaches are kept as safe as possible.

Since 1962,

there has been one fatality, that says it all to me.

So Queensland had this golden opportunity

to take this decision

and really implement some sweeping changes across the program

that were better gonna protect the public,

better protect the ocean, better protect the reef.

But instead, they really doubled down on their position,

and I guess this is just indicative

of what we see all over the world in politics today.

Politicians are doubling down

on what they said in the beginning and digging themselves in holes

further and further.

And shark culling is no stranger to this.

And it'll be so important, this federal appeal,

as in if we can win that, we'll really give them no other option.

[Bana] Inspite of all this,

the Queensland Government continues to refuse

to follow the overwhelming evidence uncovered in this case.

Instead, simply moving every single drumline

they were forced to remove from the Marine Park

to just outside its borders.

At the turn of the millennium,

the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act

was introduced,

requiring any activities harming protected species,

like the culling of great whites, to seek approval.

Due to a loophole in the Act, anything lawful taking place

prior to the introduction of the Act can continue,

free from any formal approval process,

so long as it doesn't expand.

New South Wales have held their end of the bargain,

keeping their program the same size,

51 beaches, since the year 2000.

But Queensland continues to push its luck

with the law.

They have expanded and intensified

the Shark Control Program significantly

in the past 20 years,

breaching the very loophole

they used to avoid needing official approval.

And they are suffering zero consequences.

This could well be the next legal challenge to culling.

[man 1 speaking indistinctly]

[man 2] Just come back here with that camera for a minute,

please, I haven't finished.

[man 1] She's got certain...

[overlapping chatter]

[man 1] ...concerns about the safety of the operation.

[man 2] Oh, I want that camera.

[o overlapping chatter]

[man 1] So we'll just get your names and addresses at this stage.

And we'll get the full details from the lady on board the boat, okay?

[Migah Lester] Back in 1992, on Easter Monday,

myself and two kids from the neighborhood were hanging out all day.

One of them, his name was Paul Rogers.

And it was a typical hot day

in the Easter holidays on the Gold Coast.

So we asked our parents if we could go surfing.

They said, "Yes," as long as we surf

right next to the patrol flags.

I had been surfing the previous two weeks,

so I knew that there was a drumline that had been washed in.

I paddled out,

and I noticed my two friends didn't get out of the back.

And I was a little bit older, I was 11,

so I was thinking, "Oh, maybe they're just struggling

to get through the little white waters,

to get out the back."

But I drifted into the patrol flags

where we're not allowed to surf and I thought,

"Okay, instead of paddling against the current,

I'll run around and see if they're in the shore break and I'll join them."

As I got to the beach, I was running on the sand

and I'd seen a bunch of lifeguards

bringing Paul in, carrying him in.

My immediate thought was, "Oh, wow.

Paul is helping them with their training."

They put him down on the ground,

and the second they put him on the ground, they started CPR.

The first thing I noticed was, when I looked down at Paul,

I could see his ankle had these

really deep, intense...

rope or cable marks

that looked like it was wrapped around his ankle.

His eyes were open,

and the guys who were doing CPR were crying,

and it all kind of, like, sunk in, you know.

We're just little kids and it's like, "Oh, my God."

It was the next morning when I was heading to the hospital to see him,

and he was in intensive care, and then on the radio,

it came on that he didn't make it.

That's something that I'll never forget,

that I've always lived with.

I just don't... I don't know, man. I just...

The audacity of that Shark Control Program or the people that run it,

to use Paul as a way to bring in a ruling to protect their own interests,

for them to use his death as an excuse

to just try and stop people investigating what's going on.

Do you know your negligence

is directly responsible for my friend's death?

Like, directly responsible.

There's no other way to cut it.

You put an object in the water, it washed in,

it was there for two weeks, and you didn't remove it.

You pass the blame on to other people,

you pass the responsibility to the lifeguards,

to the Surf Lifesaving Club. You didn't get it out.

And you know, this equipment,

when it gets washed in and buried,

you can't get your Shark Control boats in there.

And you don't go and cut them,

like, why the hell aren't you cutting them and removing them?

Why are they even there in the first place?

It just shows where their intent lies,

it shows it's not there for protection,

it's there for their own intent.

I'd love to know the response

from the actual people that are in the water.

I'd love to hear their opinions of it,

instead of a fisherman whose job is to go out and kill stuff.

But what about all the rest of us, you know?

We don't want marine animals

being caught on hooks and wrapped in nets

off where we're surfing and swimming.

It's like, the person who's doing this, like, where's your morals?

Like, where's your heart in this?

You say you're there to protect us, but you're not.

You're probably sitting in an office.

You're not the one in the lineups,

you're not the one whose kid is surfing there.

Have you even taken into consideration how his mum feels?

No. She's, like, an amazing woman with an amazing kid.

Like, Paul was the nicest kid you could ever meet.

And you took that away. He'd be 38 today.

And now 22 years later, you wanna bring a rule in that just protects yourself.

It has no interest in protecting anyone else.

So it really shows what your true colors are.

[man 1] A teenager is, tonight, counting his lucky stars,

after coming within centimeters of the jaws of a shark.

He'd been surfing off Bribie Island, when the predator struck.

[man 2] 18 drumlines along Bribie Island

keep the public relatively safe,

but they can't stop every shark.

[man 3] In Queensland, history shows us,

and the CSIRO has published data,

to show that in the 1930s,

there were a considerable number of shark bite incidences

on the Queensland coast, including the Gold Coast.

In the 1930s, the 1940s, the numbers were quite high.

And then the numbers started dropping off in the '50s and the '60s.

And since then, the numbers have remained flat.

So the numbers have remained flat

from before the Shark Control Program equipment

has been deployed.

And so you can't put a causal link between the low numbers

and the Shark Control Program equipment.

[Paul] More people die from drowning around Australia.

So many more people die from drowning around Australia

than die from sharks.

And yet, there's no attention being brought to the drowning problem,

only killing of sharks.

[Dr. Leonardo] When you look at shark mitigation, you know,

just because you've been doing something for so many years,

doesn't mean it's the right way.

I mean, societies have changed

over a variety of issues because cultures change, perceptions change,

technology changes, knowledge changes.

So when you look at shark mitigation,

if we use the analogy of road safety,

60 years ago, the road toll was a lot higher.

Since then, we've gotten better with car technology,

ABS braking, airbags, road education,

people getting their licenses has improved.

We've improved our road laws,

and we've reduced the road toll.

And guess what? We didn't take cars off the road.

So why would shark control be any different?

Why would we say,

"No, let's stick to what we've been doing for the past 60 years,

let's not move with the times,

let's not move with technology,

let's not move with education,

let's not move with the knowledge we get,

and still go, "Oh, yeah, but everything's fine?"

It does not make sense.

[Jonathan] On our Gold Coast, they're all for killing animals in the ocean,

in the name of their tourism industry,

'cause they seem to be scared down there

of the day when the sharks are going to walk out

on their fins,

on the beach, and start biting people.

It's more discouraging here in Australia

than it is, for example, in Indonesia.

In Indonesia, I work with men

that spend weeks offshore killing hundreds of sharks.

And I have more respect for them,

because they're doing that to feed their families.

Whereas here, we're doing it for a false sense of comfort.

We have absolutely no right and no excuse

to be treating our wildlife the way that we do,

other than blind ignorance and selfishness.

So it's far harder to respect

things that are occurring in my own country,

and to see it from their perspective.

We react to sharks like they're terrorists.

When I'm in America and someone's been bitten by a shark,

and when I lived in Hawaii, and someone was bitten by a shark,

everybody's like, "Oh, well, he knew the risks.

And this is their home, not ours."

But in Australia, it's so different. It's like,

"We're out for blood now. Revenge time."

Our biggest mistake, being public Australians

that interact with these animals every day,

is putting our faith in the government to protect us,

because that is not their goal.

And so far, they've not been successful with that.

[Bana] Sharks aren't the only victims of the cull.

At some beaches, up to 97% of animals caught in the nets

are made up of other innocent marine life.

Whales, dolphins, rays, turtles.

Animals that are loved all around the world.

Animals that are on the endangered species list.

Animals that are supposed to be protected in our waters.

Shark culling has many destructive, unintended consequences

and it's mostly coming from by-catch.

Um, whales, dolphins, turtles, rays,

and all of these animals are incredibly vital

to these ocean ecosystems

that are already under so much stress.

[Madison] So the very first time I went out to the shark nets

was on this dodgy little dinghy with a friend of mine

in really rough weather, and I saw three dead stingrays,

and it was just this huge wake-up call of,

how on earth is this happening

and how are people ignoring it?

I think that the whales being caught

is probably the only thing that really makes the public look at them and think,

"Oh, wow, that's terrible."

And since then, I've had the opportunity

to go out there and see the damage they're doing

off our coastline a lot more.

So it's been one of the hardest things

that I've ever had to come up against in conservation as well,

because you're dealing with something people think protects them.

If you could see all the other stuff caught in them,

it's insane.

[groaning]

[squeaking and grunting]

[squeaking and grunting continue]

[Holly] The day that I found a humpback whale

caught in a shark net

was possibly one of the worst days of my life.

To see this animal that we see on our coastlines,

breaching and slapping and playing,

and to see one physically wrapped in a net

in just silence there, um,

doing a behavior that obviously I've never seen before,

it was just,

it was hopeless, and it was just sitting there,

um, just able to breathe on the surface.

So getting in the water with that whale

was the first time I've ever swam with a whale.

And it was just still,

and it would just come up for breaths every now and then.

And I remember the rope just being

entangled around its face, rubbing on its eye,

and there was nothing I could have done.

It was physically exhausted.

You could see, along the dorsal fin, along the spine,

it was cut in, bleeding.

And just looking at its face as well,

just being completely entangled in that net, was really horrible to see.

And it was one of those moments

where you wanted to get closer to look at it more,

but at the same time, this animal is highly stressed.

Humpback whales will migrate past this coastline

every year during winter.

And they basically will go up

to the Northern Great Barrier Reef,

give birth to their young and migrate down south,

and they're doing this on a limited budget of energy.

So there's no food sources

along this coastline for these guys.

And it's very important for them

to use their energy wisely

and if they are entangled in a net,

that takes a lot of energy, a lot of stress.

We never found our target species in the shark nets.

And the rest were all by-catch.

That takes a toll on you as well,

because you're in the water filming these animals.

We're mentally prepared for the by-catch,

but nowhere near as much as what we actually found.

So that was something that really sort of hit home,

is realizing that we were finding animals

that we didn't think that we would find.

I've had the experience of listening to the footage afterwards

where I've, uh,

I've been the captain on the boat.

I was managing the operation.

I have this dedicated crew of people who,

by the nature of what we're doing,

these are people who care deeply about everything that we do

and about every one of those individual animals.

And, um...

I've had to listen to the responses of my divers.

[diver crying]

When I look at that footage afterwards,

I might not know what's going on underwater,

except for what I'm told.

But when I listen to a diver crying underwater, um...

When I listened to a diver spontaneously apologize

to the animals under there,

it gets me

when I'm sitting there in my living room, watching it on a computer,

to try and get that message out.

How do we do that, uh, effectively?

Uh, and how do I look after my crew

when we're doing that?

And we're not just doing it once.

We're doing it again and again and again.

[Bana] By baiting and trapping marine animals

with only intermittent checking,

nets and drumlines

are creating a floating seafood buffet

for our apex predators.

There's evidence to show that because of this,

these measures are luring large sharks closer to shore

for an easy meal.

Given the proven ineffectiveness

of these measures

in the first place,

logic tells us that we have to question

how safe this is really keeping us.

There's always a bigger, hungrier fish out there.

Do we really want to be enticing them to our beaches?

[Holly] Through our findings, we found animals

that were there for more than a week,

that had fully started to decompose.

The chemicals and the smells are leeching into the water

from the entanglements,

and same goes for the baited drumlines.

You're gonna be luring sharks closer to shore.

[man] So let's go back to putting baited hooks

just off the surf break, just off the swimming beaches.

Does that actually make sense?

[Paul] I've actually worked with the DPI

in New South Wales on their SMART drumlines

for a very brief period of time.

And these drumlines are attracting sharks in.

Now, they said they wouldn't,

but when I was out there on the boat,

we caught two great whites on the same hook

within a matter of minutes.

And this was half a kilometer from a popular swimming beach.

So what does that tell you

about what these drumlines are attracting

to their baited hooks?

[Holly] Not only is it the deceased animals

that are luring sharks close to shore.

The stressed animals, sharks can sense that.

They can sense the vibrations and pulses

through their sensory system, that there is an animal in distress

that could potentially be a prey item.

So if it's dead or alive,

any animal caught in a shark net,

a shark passing by

is most likely going to come over

and be curious about what's in this net.

And through the entanglement that I witnessed at Noosa the other day,

those beaches are not cleared.

Now I'll tell you, at Noosa,

we know that there was a large shark under that net.

And of course,

an injured, stressed animal is going to be an attractant for that predator.

Was the beach cleared? No, it wasn't.

When that wire was left at Bilinga Beach,

on the sea floor after it died, were the beaches cleared?

Was there an education program put in place?

No, there wasn't.

Uh, there was one particular time where we found

a shovelnose ray caught in the bottom

of the Surfers Paradise net on the Gold Coast.

And this ray had humongous bite marks out of it.

So this large shovelnose ray was about two to three meters.

We checked all the nets on the Gold Coast that day

and there was no shark in any of the shark nets,

and that raises the question

that this animal was caught in this net,

the shark had managed to maneuver around the net

without becoming entangled in it.

[man] A monster shark measuring more than five meters

is lurking off North Stradbroke Island.

The Bligh government's released photos

showing how it mauled another large white pointer.

[woman] Like a bit of bait on a hook,

the predator, which became a meal

for an even bigger shark,

after being caught on a drumline

about half an hour from where Sarah Whiley

was killed by a shark at Amity,

the state government's take on it

is that we should be happy the Shark Control Program's doing its job,

catching the smaller shark in the first place.

But what about the monster which feasted on it?

When you tell people that an area is safer,

when you haven't indeed made it safer,

that leads human beings to make decisions,

to do things they feel confident there's less risk in,

and there may be more risk.

It leads people to take extra risk.

I learned to surf just there, at Manly Beach,

right there in the southern corner in front of the surf club.

My dad was a clubbie at Manly Surf Club.

My older brother Jason is a surfer.

Any girl that grows up with an older brother surfing,

they wanna do it with them, too.

I can honestly say I do it a little bit better than my brother.

[Tom] So the ocean is kind of like a spiritual home for me.

My mother gave me a surfboard just before she passed away.

So in essence, that surfboard took me into the ocean,

so the ocean has been kind of holding me

and the surfboard's been holding me since,

in a way, that, um...

Yeah, I don't know. It's hard to explain it.

It's definitely an on-the-moment thing,

that the ocean just tells us

how to actually be really present with her.

And I think that's why I kind of go back to her,

because she just absolutely demands all my attention.

[Layne] When I'm out here at Freshwater, for example,

and I talk to local surfers, and I ask them,

"What's your position on sharks

and shark mitigation,"

one of them said to me today,

"See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil."

I'm seven times world champion surfer

and chair of Surfing Australia,

and I completely understand

that the minute I immerse myself in the water,

I'm immersing myself into their environment, their domain,

and you have to accept that they're a predator.

I feel that that mentality is widely respected

around the world in most surfers.

I can't speak on behalf of every surfer,

but I know from my individual perspective,

I recognize that there is an inherent risk

every time I enter the water.

I do what I can to mitigate that risk,

but I'm also willing to take that risk.

My desire to surf is unwavering,

irrespective of whether there's nets there or not.

Having traveled the world as a professional surfer,

I've surfed in countless oceans

and countless surf spots where I know there aren't nets

and that has never affected my choice to go surfing

or my decision to go surfing.

[Tom] I take personal responsibility anytime.

I think that's our...

I hope that's our culture here in Australia, you know.

I hope to think every Australian can think like this.

To be honest, I've been surfing

for, what, 51 years now.

And while surfing, I may have seen...

five sharks.

Not just surfing part-time. [laughs]

That's surfing a lot.

In remote areas around this country

where you're gonna see sharks.

When we look at the shark,

which has been around here for millions of years,

it's literally a dinosaur,

it may appear to us to be a really dangerous creature

and bring up a lot of fear.

I've had first-hand experience with that.

I looked him straight in the eye. Big sharks.

And they've had, uh, a kind of response to me like,

"Hmm, that person's a predator, too."

[Layne] There's a very low chance of being bitten by a shark.

Like, the chances are very slim, very slender.

You have a higher incidence of being hit by a car

or stung by a bee and dying from that

than you do a shark attack.

I'm a believer and an advocate for coexisting.

Uh, we know, as ocean lovers,

that once we immerse ourselves in the ocean,

we're going into a shark domain,

and we have to recognize that that is one of the risks

that we're willing to accept.

Given we know what we know today,

it is absolutely archaic

that we're relying on a program

that was devised in 1930.

When I think about culling programs,

I just think it must come from a lack of education

and a cultural belief.

So if you really wanna truly educate yourself,

get off your board and dive underneath

and spend some time on the bottom.

[Tom] We're sophisticating ourselves

in so many areas now.

We've got a lot of great technologies

and they just keep on evolving.

We've got to tap into that,

and so we can live with nature because we are nature.

If we can use technology

to actually create that scenario,

I think that's ideal.

[water splashing]

I think New South Wales,

the shark management program here

and the shark management strategy

is in very much a transition phase.

And it has been for probably a decade now,

where it's moving away from lethal controls

like shark nets and lethal drumlines.

So SMART drumlines have been used for a few years down here

in New South Wales.

A SMART drumline is very similar

to a traditional drumline.

It's a baited hook on a floating buoy

about 500 meters off shore.

The differences is that this has a GPS transceiver

that sends a message to a satellite

once an animal is hooked,

that sends another message down to the contractor,

who can race out there,

uh, preferably or hopefully within about 30 minutes

of an animal being caught.

Um, if it's a non-target animal,

it's released on the spot immediately.

And if it is a target shark,

um, it can be tagged and relocated.

So there's a smartphone app along with Shark Smart

that will send people a message, who have the app,

when a tagged shark comes within the vicinity of a listening station.

What it does is it's changing attitudes.

It's allowing people the option,

who want to choose a place to bring their family,

or for them to enjoy the ocean,

it allows them to look on their phone,

see if there's a shark sighted in that area,

and it allows them to make that decision independently

and bring some of that responsibility home.

And I think that change of attitude

is very, very important for us to start

not relying so much on the government

making decisions for us, but providing information

so that we can make those informed decisions on our own.

We are still concerned about animal welfare of sharks

and other animals being caught on the SMART drumlines

and how healthy they are once they're released.

[Madison] We're not the only country with this issue.

There are countries all around the world

that are tackling it differently.

And when you look at those systems,

it's insane to think that we haven't started doing that here yet.

There are systems getting worked on in Australia

and all around the world to protect people

against this very issue of shark attacks,

and some of them are far more effective,

provenly effective

than what we have here right now.

[Bana] Right here in Australia,

and in other places around the world,

we are developing less destructive

and more effective technology

to protect us while enjoying our oceans.

Solutions that actually protect people

and have no unintended side effects,

establishing a safer future for both humans

and sharks to coexist.

So we started out very early on

in a lot of the New South Wales Government trials,

and just seeing if drones could actually be used

to spot sharks and how we could use that for mitigation.

So from very early phases through to working out,

like, if it could be used

to developing standard operating procedures, at what heights,

um, and what we could actually see,

then we've sort of developed with that program.

Lifeguards literally have them on the beach now as a tool,

so helping develop their training packages

and their procedures in there as well.

Just after a few months of starting,

I noticed, starting to read comments online

like, "Oh, we should to go to this beach.

They have drone shark surveillance and lifeguards."

There's definitely different technologies that are coming along.

There's a few different companies working with it.

Australia is definitely leading the way in this.

I think drone technology is here.

Like right now, let's just use it.

Look, the way the technology works

is actually ridiculously simple.

Um, sharks have the same senses that we have to find food.

So sight, sound, and smell,

but they also have these little electrical receptors in their snout

called Ampullae of Lorenzini,

they're little gel-filled sacs.

Now every living creature gives off an electric field.

And so you might see in a nature video

a stingray swimming along the sandy bottom

and then digging down and finding a crab.

They found that crab

because of the electrical field coming off the crab.

So you can see how sensitive these things are.

And so what you do is you get two electrodes,

you run a current between the two electrodes,

and it creates an electrical field

that's thousands of times stronger

than what the shark would expect to experience.

The shark comes near it,

causes the gel-filled sacs to spasm, turns away.

Exactly the same as if I shine a bright light

in your face, in your eyes, you would just take turn away.

The eyes are over sensitized.

So it doesn't harm the shark. The shark can leave the area.

So the University of Western Australia,

what they did is they got the diving product.

They put a bait canister on the device,

they took it to South Africa,

they had 322 interactions with the bait.

43 different great white sharks,

and only one shark bumped the bait

when it was on.

When it was turned off, the sharks would come in

and bite the bait all the time.

So, amazingly successful.

So the diving product

is the one that's been around the longest.

It was developed in the '90s.

The surfboard product is on generation number two,

and it's been around for quite a while as well now.

[Juan] For me, as a surfer,

I would utilize every type of device

that I could to make it safer for me.

When you're going to extreme areas

where you know there is predators, uh,

hunting in that area, it's use what you can.

[Dr. Sara Andreotti] The Shark Safe Barrier is a new technology

that is designed to simply keep large sharks

separated from people.

We've been observing white sharks

hunting around thick forest of kelp

for quite a while in Gansbaai in South Africa,

and Cape fur seals are actually utilizing

the thick kelp to hide from shark's predation.

The Shark Safe Barrier comes from the combination

of two very well-known shark deterrents.

One is the visual appearance of a thick forest of kelp

that have been proved to be avoided by large sharks.

We suspect that is because they want to prevent

getting entangled in, uh, thick forest of kelp.

So by presenting the shark

with something that they naturally recognize as a barrier

is a big plus.

They know they have to avoid it.

Then the second part of the technology

that is a shark deterrent are large ceramic magnets.

The magnetism overwhelms the sixth sense of the shark

and acts as a deterrent.

We tested it by putting chum on one side of the barrier,

a food source that the shark can recognize as such,

to try and convince the shark to swim through it.

But none of the experiments we did,

any of the sharks actually crossed the pipes.

It is shark-specific.

Every other marine animal can just swim through it,

and it is designed to protect surfers.

There are other eco-friendly systems

that can keep swimmers separated from sharks,

but compared to the Shark Safe,

they have the limitation of being deployable only

in very calm weather.

While the Shark Safe Barrier, once it's installed,

it's designed to stay there.

We can put it in deep water, we can put it behind surfers,

to protect their back as they're surfing.

We are really, really trying as hard as we can

to have a minimal impact to the environment

by providing a solution that is safe

for both the marine life

and the people using the beach.

[Jonathan] We could trail these technologies concurrently

with the current Shark Control Program over a season,

learn how to operate it,

give people the reassurance that we're putting in these non-lethals,

monitor, do the science on the non-lethals

while you're doing it.

You know, for example,

have the drone technology

and record how often you see sharks,

how often you make people safer by bringing them in

to the beach,

and then tracking shark and knowing when you put them back out.

Let's do that science.

Do it while the nets and drumlines are still there for a season.

There is a political answer for you

that gives us a transition

to a non-lethal shark control program,

which I've gotta tell you,

if we are concerned about tourism in this state,

progressive and positive messages

about the way we treat our wildlife

is going to be paramount.

[Madison] The way that we treat animals off our coastline,

the way that we walk around like we own the ocean here,

most countries would be absolutely ecstatic

to have the kind of wildlife that we do,

and we just abuse that privilege so much.

We ignore it as well.

And I always remember being in school

and we had people come talk to us about snakes,

we had people come talk to us about drugs,

and we had people come talk to us about all kinds of things.

We had surf life savers come talk to us about rips.

But nobody taught us about sharks.

[Layne] Education is key.

And if we're uneducated,

then we tend to just be ignorant.

And then we just go with what we're told.

And unfortunately, we're being told lies,

we're being told...

We're actually being fed bullshit

around what is feasible,

what's a feasible way to mitigate the risk.

There are wonderful alternatives to culling,

and I think that that starts

with education in the community

on what they as individual citizens can do

to avoid an adverse interaction,

and educating them about

where it might be safer to swim,

maybe employing more lifesavers

who would actually save a lot more lives

than these culling practices,

which are probably more endangering lives.

As a surfer, swimmer, diver, and ocean-goer,

there are things that you can do to avoid an adverse interaction,

reduce your chances of encountering a shark.

And that's looking around and being aware.

Actually turning your body around.

And factoring in environmental conditions

like your proximity to other marine animals, runoff,

rivers, stream outlets, fishermen, fishing harbors,

and minimizing splashing on the surface,

and bright fluorescent colors that make you stand out

amongst everything else.

The Shark Control Program, or basically stopping culling,

is one thing that we can do relatively quick,

that will reduce some of the pressure

that sharks face.

In order to, I suppose, formally make a decision

and then enact that decision, um, that in itself takes time.

But we're hoping that sooner rather than later, especially,

you know, for people who do use the water,

sooner rather than later,

effective safety measures are put in place.

[Lawrence] So there are shark advocates everywhere.

I think anyone who's fortunate enough, as I have been,

to be able to spend sometime in the water

with some of these animals,

they'll all tell you what a spiritual experience it is.

And you see their behavior,

and you see the thoughtfulness behind their eyes.

And anyone that's been able to experience that

immediately becomes a shark advocate.

You just cannot help it.

[Juan] Kind of turning that fear into a fascination

and that fascination into, like, a healthy respect

to wanna do something to help protect them.

Especially once you hear the information.

And I'm hoping that can be an infective thing,

where other people will do the same thing

that I did, basically.

And that's what I'm trying to do with my photography.

It's just showing that we can coexist,

that we can share the same waters with these animals

and that we need these animals.

Like, most people just don't know the truth.

And if they did, I have to feel like

they would make changes

in the way that they consume things

and the way that they would actually

vote with their dollar or even just with a voice,

just speaking up for these animals.

They need it now more than ever.

I mean, if those studies are even remotely close,

and 5% of the world's shark population is all we got left,

then there's never a more important time to act than right now.

Every time we enter the ocean,

we're taking our life in our hands,

because it is not our backyard swimming pool.

Everything we do to control nature

has a domino effect that ripples down onto us.

So we have to take care of this environment,

we have to treasure our sharks

and understand exactly what it is they do

to keep their ecosystem in check.

I hope that more people's eyes will be open

to the importance of sharks, their plight,

and that people will join together

and do something to help protect them.

Just like what was done for the protection of whales

and many marine animals and cetaceans

and even turtles around the world.

And I think that I see the change already,

especially with the influence of media

and different companies getting on board and getting involved.

Your voice matters, you know,

especially 'cause you don't know

what kind of chain reaction it's gonna have.

You don't know what kind of seed it's gonna plant,

and, you know, the politicians and the big businesses

will listen to the masses.

Start. Don't think that you can't make a difference because you can.

[Madison] The shark nets are the one thing

that I have never successfully dented.

It's just an insane enemy to be up against.

So I've always been at war with them

throughout my entire life.

It's probably one of the biggest wars

in shark conservation

because it is such a delicate issue.

It is just off our coastline,

but it's so hidden from the public.

Making that awareness possible is really difficult.

And dealing with people's mentalities is really difficult.

So I don't know.

It's always been a huge challenge to me,

and I feel pretty confident in what I've been able to do

for sharks around the world,

but here, it's one of those things

that I think I'll be battling for the rest of my life.

[Bana] Humans have shared the oceans with these animals

for a mere fraction of their 450-million-year existence.

Sharks are the ultimate apex predators.

They have survived and adapted throughout ice ages,

heat waves, and mass extinctions,

to be the perfectly evolved creatures

we share our oceans with today.

But there is one mass extinction

they are struggling to survive.

The one our arrogance, entitlement, and fear is fueling.

There are positive changes being made,

driven by a dedicated few, but we need more voices.

At this point in our history,

we know that we must protect them,

not just for them to survive, but for our own survival.

Sharks will survive just fine without us,

but we cannot survive without them.

For their future and ours,

we must become their envoy.

[dramatic music playing]

-Save the sharks. -Save the sharks.

[man] Thousands held protests in Melbourne and Perth on Saturday.

They called on the Western Australian Government

to abandon the shark culling plan

announced last month.

Six people have been killed by sharks

and several more attacked in the local waters

since September 2011.

That's gonna target large sharks

including, uh, the vulnerable great white shark,

and we believe it's 2014 and we're beyond that now.

[man] Under the plan, baited drumlines would be set off local beaches

to catch great white sharks,

tiger, and bull sharks bigger than three meters.

Protesters claim killing sharks

would devastate the marine ecosystem.

[woman] The protests grew from hundreds to thousands.

It's their water!

[all] Stop the slaughter!

Please just change the policy.

[woman] Some protesters went too far

with death threats against the premier and fisheries minister

and abuse for contract fishermen.

But even shark victims didn't like the drumlines.

Killing animals isn't the greatest idea.