Fury over whale carcass law
A rotting whale carcass was allowed to float towards Perth beaches ahead of the first weekend of Nippers because of jurisdictional wrangling over the legality of towing it out to sea.
Coastal councils were yesterday furious that the 9m carcass was left to float off Stirling beaches before washing up at Whitford beach, leaving a removal bill totalling tens of thousands of dollars.
The Department of Fisheries became aware of the dead whale floating off Scarborough beach on Thursday and sent a boat to monitor the sharks it was attracting, including a great white which was electronically tagged.
But department principal research scientist Rory McAuley said yesterday officers were "not legally entitled to do anything with the whale".
Under the Federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act it is illegal to take possession of the carcass of a protected species.
By the time it washed up on Saturday, the heavily decomposed body was trailing oil.
It forced the closure of beaches either side of Whitford and left Joondalup officers no choice but to use heavy machinery to take it to landfill.
State Fisheries Minister Troy Buswell said that towing dead whales away was "a logical proposition".
He would approach the Commonwealth about exemptions from the law, if necessary.
Joondalup mayor Troy Pickard welcomed the move.
"It's unsafe and nonsensical to deal with whale carcasses the way that we are," he said.
The Department of Parks and Wildlife will foot the bill for the removal of the carcass.
Mr Buswell and Dr McAuley yesterday unveiled upgraded technology for WA's shark detection network capable of swifter notification to safety agencies, including Surf Life Saving WA.
Fisheries tagged a 4m great white off Albany's Cheynes beach on August 27 - the biggest shark to be internally fitted with an acoustic transmitter in Australian waters.
A kite-surfer said he had a close encounter with a shark off Mullaloo beach on Friday.
Jim Charette, 38, told Channel 10 he was about 50m from shore when a 4m shark got caught up in his kite and snapped his line.
"I ejected the kite, got on my surfboard and started paddling to shore," he said.
