(Perth Now Website photo)
This is beyond distressing.
It’s not 2014, it’s 2016 and yet nothing has changed. Winter has just started and WA fisheries have already killed a 4.2 metre Great White Shark. The Great White Shark is a protected species, so how is this even legal? The public has voted 2 to 1 to NOT kill the shark on the Perth Now website and yet fisheries disregard the science, the proof and the public!
Here is the PERTH NOW website poll:
Thanks for your vote!
No 64.39% (4,726 votes)
Yes 32.6% (2,393 votes)
Don’t care 3.01% (221 votes)
Total Votes: 7,340
Return To Poll
How is this happening? How are we here, again, two years later?
Surfers undoubtedly know the risks of entering the ocean – as should all ocean users – those who are not prepared to take responsibility for themselves in the ocean should find a nice pool somewhere instead.
Humans are NOT more important than other creatures we share the planet with. In fact, humans serve no ecosystem service whatsoever; sharks do. This planet, the only blue one, is habitable because of the oceans – they are what sustain this planet and all life on it. We are only here thanks to the 450-million-year evolutionary service of sharks who have kept the oceans healthy and functioning with the very air we breathe and the ability to swallow that we inherited from them. And this is the way we repay them, with spiteful and random revenge killing. Humans are NOT an endangered species and we do NOT have the right to be exempt from the food chain we are and should be a part of not apart from.
Until people can accept responsibility for themselves and governments stop trying to nanny us into a complete and utter stupor and make us incapable of making decisions and taking the consequences for ourselves, I think people need to stay out of the water – or grow up. It’s a simple choice.
Sandra Laight.com 