Australia news live: shark-spotting drones to patrol NSW beaches year-round
Premier Chris Minns says technology will be largest expansion of aerial shark surveillance in the world. Follow the day’s updates live Get our breaking news
Premier Chris Minns says technology will be largest expansion of aerial shark surveillance in the world. Follow the day’s updates live Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Drone technology won’t be ‘foolproof’ but should ‘mitigate the risk’, NSW premier says The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, says the state government’s expansion of shark surveillance came in response to a reduction in the number of people visiting beaches amid a spate of shark attacks.
We now are in a situation where … we seen a reduction in the number of people who are enjoying our beaches and enjoying the Pacific Ocean, even in the winter period. So we know we want to take action … It’s not going to be foolproof. We can’t promise it won’t lead to further shark attacks in the future, but we think it’ll mitigate the risk.
They’re a protected species. They’ve been a protected species since the 90s, and I’m not convinced it would work. I mean, the distances these sharks travel are massive. It’s not like we can knock a few off and send a message to the rest of them … I think it’s a different situation for bull sharks. Generally they’re in our estuaries … We’re looking particularly at an audit of the number of sharks in Sydney Harbour.
We want to keep people safe, particularly when there’s a higher number of people in the water. Continue reading...
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