Fatal shark attack sparks culling debate in Queensland | Sunrise

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]Let's get more on that second fatal shark attack in Australia in as many weeks, which has sparked renewed calls this morning for culling in Queensland.

[00:00:07]A 39-year-old man lost his life after being mauled while spear fishing at a coral shoal in far north Queensland.

[00:00:14]It's believed he was bitten on the head by a bull shark as he went to retrieve a fish on Sunday afternoon. Sadly, he died from his injuries after being brought back to shore.

[00:00:25]Joining us now is shark researcher from James Cook University, Richard Fitzpatrick in Cairns. Great to have you with us. So, Richard, it's being reported this morning that it was very likely a bull shark. Does that make sense to you?

[00:00:39]Uh we actually have another shark up here called the pigeye that no one actually really knows much about. We've only learned about it ourselves last few years and they look exactly like a bull shark except for the anal fin has a different angle on it. So, when we started catching and tagging the sharks out wide, even we were mistaking the bulls and pigeyes. And and even though they they look exactly the same, they have two different uh lifestyles totally. The bull sharks, we've learned last few years, are highly migratory, whereas the pigeyes are the ones that are a bit more resident. And probably are responsible for a lot of the depredation issues we have up here.

[00:01:14]Okay, well, let's talk about the timing and location of this. Is it unusual at all?

[00:01:19]No, I mean, sharks live in the Great Barrier Reef. Um we have had a recovery in the shark population that was, you know, fished right down in the um '70s and '80s and with the expansion of the marine park 30 years ago to a third of it being protected, we have seen the slow recovery of shark stocks in these areas. So, you know, a lot of people haven't, you know, through that period it's been like a shifting baseline where they remember that there weren't many sharks 20, 30 years ago, whereas now it's getting back to a sort of recovered population. What the exact population is, to be honest, we have no idea and we're about to start a program to try and estimate the bull shark population for the whole east coast of Australia.

[00:01:55]So, you know, we really need to know what species are involved Uh and also where the movement patterns are and at the end of the day what their population structures are so then management can make decisions about them. The C-word, some calling for a cull. Is now the time?

[00:02:11]We don't know the population structure of these sharks at all. You know, we simply do not know how many are out there and we are only just about to start this whole process through genetic sampling.

[00:02:23]We We've got about half the samples done. We need a heap more to look at the relatedness so then we can come up with an estimate of the population size and that estimate will only be at this point in time. This hasn't been done in the past. This is all new technology that's only just come on in the last few years and both the Queensland government, New South Wales government, everyone's pulling all their data sets together to finally for us to work out what that population structure is but we also need to know what species were involved.

[00:02:51]We know that there's a risk going in the water at the moment particularly at certain times of the day and after rain etc. What can you tell people to protect themselves?

[00:03:02]Spearfishing I I do spearfishing for research. It's a high-risk activity and when we go out we always make sure we're prepared for the worst. You know, we have tourniquets, hemostatic dressings, quick clot and all that kind of stuff particularly when you're in remote locations of the Great Barrier Reef. You really need to have good first aid training and just be prepared for the worst. Okay, really appreciate your time Richard. Thank you.

[00:03:26]He's not.