beach per year. Australia In New South Wales, Australia, 51 beaches are netted. The nets are maintained by the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries. The nets are generally 150 metres long, 6 m wide and "bottom-set" on the seabed in depths of 10 m. The nets can be 500 metres from the beach. The mesh is sized 50–60 centimetres. Nets are lifted every 24 to 48 hours for servicing so as to prevent rotting, to clean out debris and to remove dead sharks and other marine life. It is said that 35–50% of the sharks are entangled from the beach side. Acoustic "pingers" have been fitted to the nets to warn off dolphins and whales and the nets are not in place in winter, the whale migration season. The Department states that the nets have "never been regarded as a means of absolutely preventing any attacks", but help to deter sharks from establishing territories. From 1950 to 2008, hundreds of great white sharks and tiger sharks perished in the nets in New South Wales. In Queensland, Australia, drum lines are used in combination with shark nets. Queensland's Shark Control Program has been in place since the early 1960s. In Queensland's 2011/12 summer season there were 714 sharks caught, 281 above 2 metres in shark nets and drum lines. Since 1997, 500-900 sharks perished annually in the program, including several shark species of conservation concern. They include the following: A fatal attack in Queensland occurred in January 2006 at Amity Point on North Stradbroke Island. The water at this location drops off to 30 metres depth, and bull sharks are known to frequent the area. Drum lines were installed at beaches around the island at the time. Another shark attack occurred at Greenmount Beach on the Gold Coast in 2020. Drumlines and shark nets were installed at the beach at this time. South Africa In South Africa, shark nets are installed at numerous beaches in KwaZulu-Natal by the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board. Shark nets have been installed in KwaZulu-Natal since the 1950s and have greatly reduced the number of shark attacks along the beaches where they are installed. However more than 33,000 sharks have perished in KwaZulu-Natal's nets in a 30-year period. KwaZulu-Natal's shark net program has been called "archaic" and "disastrous to the ecosystem". See also Drum line Shark attack prevention Shark Shield Shark proof cage Shark culling References