The tide is turning on shark nets at Sydney’s famed beaches

 


A photo of a grey nurse shark taken by scuba diver Sarah Han-de-Beaux near Bondi Beach in 2021. 
Sarah Han-de-Beaux
CNN — 

Editor’s Note: Call to Earth is a CNN editorial series committed to reporting on the environmental challenges facing our planet, together with the solutions. Rolex’s Perpetual Planet Initiative has partnered with CNN to drive awareness and education around key sustainability issues and to inspire positive action.

In late November, a gaggle of open-water swimmers set out from Sydney’s Bondi Beach. About 500 meters (1,600 feet) from shore, they stopped and formed a line 150 meters (about 500 feet) long, treading water above the length of the beach’s shark net.

They hoped to demonstrate that the length of the net paled in comparison to that of the world-famous kilometer-long beach. And that if they could easily bypass the net, sharks can too.

“It’s a bit of a joke for us when we swim over the top of or around the outside of the shark nets … seeing how utterly useless they are,” Kim Miller, an open-water swimmer based in Sydney, told CNN.

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