Traditional shark meshing (gillnets) to reduce local numbers of large sharks

Mechanism

Mesh nets are gillnets set a few hundred metres offshore, typically in about 10–14 m of water and anchored at both ends. They are designed to entangle and kill sharks moving along the beach, lowering the local abundance of large sharks rather than physically blocking them from the swimming area.

Where it fits

Historically deployed on open surf coasts in New South Wales, Queensland and KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa). It is included here because it remains in active use and dominates public debate — but as an approach it sits in tension with the parent issue's framing, since it targets shark presence (and the false premise of aggression) rather than the overlap that actually drives risk.

Operating profile

• Not an enclosure: a net covers a patch roughly the length of a football pitch on beaches often kilometres long, and sharks swim over, under or around it — frequently caught on the beach side as they leave.
• Bycatch is high, commonly cited above 90% non-target animals (turtles, rays, dolphins, harmless sharks, occasionally whales).
• Nets are seasonal and are pulled during whale migration or heavy debris, leaving coverage gaps.

Evidence

The historical fall in fatalities at netted beaches is confounded with better first aid, hospitals and changing behaviour, and recent peer-reviewed work (Huveneers et al., 2024) finds bite reduction hard to attribute to nets, with most bites occurring at non-netted beaches. Support is shifting: several Sydney beaches removed nets between 2023 and 2025 in favour of drones and SMART drumlines, and surveys show majorities favouring a phase-out.