2023-12-28 13:47:44
Published28. December 2023, 2:47 p.m.
New Caledonia: Shark killing campaigns banned
Justice has ruled in favor of an association which demanded the abandonment of the measure introduced to protect bathers after several fatal attacks.
A sign warns of the danger of shark attacks and indicates the presence of a secure supervised swimming area within a newly installed maritime net, on a beach in Baie des Citrons in Nouméa, New Caledonia, on December 6 2023.
AFP
The Administrative Court of New Caledonia ruled in favor on Thursday of an association which called for a ban on shark killing campaigns, relaunched at the start of 2023 in Nouméa in order to protect swimmers after two fatal attacks. Justice annulled the decision taken by the mayor of Nouméa, Sonia Lagarde (Renaissance), “to continue the preventive campaigns to regulate tiger and bulldog sharks around the beaches located on the territory of the municipality”, according to the judgment rendered public Thursday.
The Administrative Court considered that the decision to carry out systematic shark culling campaigns “was disproportionate with regard to the aim of protecting human life pursued, especially since no precise scientific study was carried out to know the state of the populations of the targeted species, nor the effects on the environment of such samples.
Measure deemed disproportionate
On January 29, 2023, a teacher was seriously injured by a shark while she was swimming about a hundred meters from the edge of Château Royal beach, in a tourist district of Nouméa. Three weeks later, a new attack claimed the life of an Australian tourist, in the same place. A man who practiced underwater fishing also died in June after an attack.
A hundred sharks killed in 2023
According to the ocean protection association Longitude 181, a total of 127 sharks – 83 tigers and 44 bulldogs – were killed during culling campaigns in 2023. A total of 203 animals – 105 tigers and 98 bulldogs – were killed. been slaughtered since 2019, when shark fishing was authorized by the southern province following an attack which seriously injured a 10-year-old child in Nouméa. The mayor of Nouméa then decided to ban swimming throughout the territory of the municipality and to carry out monthly campaigns to kill tiger and bull sharks, two species of large sharks, most often involved in accidents with humans.
In recent years, the risk linked to sharks has increased significantly in the archipelago, mainly in Nouméa. According to a study by the University of Reunion, the town had never experienced an attack of this type before 2010. Since that date, 13 of the 32 attacks that have occurred in New Caledonia have taken place in Nouméa.
(AFP)
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