An Australian man has been fined A$18,000 (US$16,000) for killing a juvenile great white shark by ramming it with his boat, then beating it to death with a metal pole, officials said yesterday.
Great whites are a protected species in Australia and it is illegal to catch, keep, buy, sell, possess or harm them.
The New South Wales (NSW) Department of Primary Industries took action against the man, identified in media reports as Justin Clark, 40, after witnesses told fisheries officers he used his boat to herd the shark into shallow water in Sussex Inlet, south of Sydney, in January 2012.
Wollongong Local Court heard that he deliberately used his boat to ram the shark several times, with its main injuries caused by the propeller.
A rope was tied to the shark’s tail and it was towed back to a boat ramp, where the department said it was beaten to death with a metal pole.
Clark was fined a total of A$18,103, with Department of Primary Industries Director of Fisheries Compliance Glenn Tritton saying it was a warning to others.
“This conviction sends a strong message that harming of our threatened species will not be tolerated — everyone needs to know the rules and ignorance is no excuse,” Tritton said. “Great white sharks are found along the NSW coastline and as apex predators at the top of the food chain, they play an important role in marine ecosystems.”
Sharks are common in Australian waters, although they rarely prove fatal to humans, with only one of the average 15 attacks a year typically resulting in death.
In recent weeks, thousands of people have rallied around the country in protest at a controversial shark culling policy in Western Australia.
It allows sharks longer than 3m caught on bait lines off popular west coast beaches to be killed after six fatal attacks in the past two years.
The policy is designed to reduce risks to water users, but has angered conservationists, who claim it flies in the face of international obligations to protect the great white.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing