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Parliamentary Questions


Question Without Notice No. 138 asked in the Legislative Council on 22 March 2018 by Hon Diane Evers

Parliament: 40 Session: 1


SHARKS — GREAT WHITE
      138. Hon DIANE EVERS to the minister representing the Minister for Fisheries:
I refer to the 2012 Department of Fisheries occasional paper titled ''A correlation study of the potential risk factors associated with white shark attacks in Western Australian waters''.
      (1) Does the minister consider that this paper contains information that ocean users could use to reduce their risk of encountering a white shark?
      (2) Given that more than five years have passed since the paper was published, will the minister ask the department to research and publish an update on known risk factors for a white shark encounter off WA; and, if not, why not?
      (3) Has the tagged shark detection data collected by the fisheries department since 2009 provided an indication of when there are lower or higher risk windows within the year for a white shark encounter off —
          (a) the Perth metropolitan coast;
          (b) the south west coast; and
          (c) the south coast?
      (4) If yes to (3), what are these findings; and, if no, will the minister ask the department to conduct research into this?
Hon ALANNAH MacTIERNAN replied:
I thank the member for the question. The Minister for Fisheries has provided the following information.
(1) Yes.
(2) No decision has been made on a follow-up report.
      (3) This question was addressed with reference to fisheries research report 273 titled ''Evaluation of passive acoustic telemetry approaches for monitoring and mitigating shark hazards off the coast of Western Australia''.
          (a) Yes.
          (b)–(c) Yes—data was combined.
          (4) (a) Detection levels were lowest between February and May and increased in October and November.
          (b)–(c) Detections levels were lower in June and July than in the rest of the year.