Hammerhead sharks skirt safety nets at popular Australian beach
Video footage captured Monday at Australia’s Bondi Beach shows two hammerhead sharks cruising inside safety nets designed to prevent large sharks from approaching the shore.
The footage, shared to Instagram by Drone Shark App founder Jason Iggleden, shows the sharks swimming lazily beyond the surf, one behind the other.
“Great to see they diverted the nets safely,” Iggleden wrote in the description. “I haven’t seen this before, actually.”
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Nobody was in the water at the Sydney beach when the footage was captured, just before sunrise. But a day earlier, Iggleden noted, thousands participated in a major swimming event.
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Shark nets are controversial because they exact a heavy toll on marine life and cannot guarantee that sharks won’t find a way around the barriers.
Leonardo Guida, a shark scientist at the Australian Marine Conservation Society, told 9 News Australia that all three types of hammerhead sharks found off Australia are threatened.
“Two of the largest, scalloped and great hammerheads, are endangered and are protected species,” Guida said. “The fact these two were spotted on the beach-side of the net shows how outdated and ineffective this measure is.”
Iggleden’s commentary suggests that one shark in the footage is nicknamed Homer. “We’ll have to name the second one in the back,” he says. “Maybe Homer’s little girlfriend.”
