SHARK MONITORING NETWORK
1251. Hon JIM CHOWN to the minister representing the Minister
for Fisheries:
I refer to question without notice 1135
asked on Thursday, 8 November 2018.
(1) Will the
minister provide a list of the number of sharks that have been detected at each
of the 27 acoustic receivers, including the size of those sharks, since 1
January 2017?
(2) How many great white sharks have
been tagged since 1 January 2018?
(3) Given the number
of great white sharks that are visible to the network, does the Department of
Fisheries have an estimate of the number of sharks that are not visible to the
network?
(4) If no to (3), what is the
estimated size of the great white population in Western Australian waters?
Hon
ALANNAH MacTIERNAN replied:
I thank the member for the question.
The Minister for Fisheries has provided the following information.
(1) I table the
attached information. It is important to note that the shark length data
provided refers to the length of individual sharks at the time they were
tagged.
[See paper 2249.]
(2) There have been 11 sharks
tagged.
(3) No.
(4) As white
sharks are highly mobile animals, it is not possible to provide an estimate of
what proportion of the south west population of white sharks might be located
in Western Australian waters at any one time.