Fearing bad publicity, a Tourism Whitsundays manager lobbied State Government to eliminate drumlines from Cid Harbour in the wake of two shark attacks due to bad publicity.
The lobbying came days before drumlines were removed just, and six weeks prior to the debate was reignited following a third – this time around fatal – shark attack in exactly the same spot.
Emails obtained by The Courier-Mail show the overall manager of Tourism Whitsundays Natassia Wheeler, emailed Tourism Minister Kate Jones’s policy adviser arguing for removing drumlines in the harbour because of negative media attention.
That email came days after tourist Justine Barwick, 46, and schoolgirl Hannah Papps, 12, suffered serious shark attack injuries while swimming in the busy Whitsundays mooring spot a day apart.
The Fisheries Department reacted to the attacks by installing baited drumlines, with the media publishing images of the capture of large sharks.
Mrs Wheeler, emailed the policy adviser on September 24 asking: “Will there be anything you can perform to possess these (drumlines) removed?
“In the event that you keep these drumlines in, you are likely to keep catching sharks,” she wrote.
“The media attention changes from the attacks to the quantity and size of sharks caught in the Whitsundays, and that it’s an unsafe spot to visit and swim then.”
She later texted Ms Jones asking “when there is a means any captures can’t be reported in the media”.
The drumlines were removed after six days but came under discussion again last month when Melbourne doctor Daniel Christidis 33, was killed in a Cid Harbour attack.
Days later experts eliminated installing drumlines towards an area shark study and a no-swim zone declaration, finding drumlines “cannot guarantee swimmer safety”.
This week Ms Wheeler said she sent the e-mail on the trunk of “emails, threats (and) horrible calls” from individuals who thought Tourism Whitsundays authorised the drumlines.
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