Letter
Netted confusion
It seems that Graeme Stewart, like much of the media, jumped on the shark netting misinformation bandwagon by trying to claim that Long Reef beach where the shark encounter occurred on 6 September 2015 had shark nets removed:
“The tragic fatality at Dee Why, the first at a netted Sydney ocean beach in 88 years, followed the removal of the nets a month earlier, at the end of March.”
The truth is that Long Reef beach, where the fatality occurred, has never been netted. However, this has not stopped the press (including now, I’m sad to say this erudite masthead) getting into a frenzy about how the removal of nets has caused a rise in shark encounters.
That may be true, but it had no bearing on this case where sadly the important details of this instance have been lost in the quagmire of misinformation regarding shark nets.
— Chris Welsh from Ryde