Last week, the long-awaited EPBC Act reforms were finally passed in the Senate. Despite 165,000 signatures collected on our Change.org page , overwhelming community support, countless expert recommendations, and a clear opportunity to modernise outdated policies, the final bill did not include the removal of Section 43B. This archaic loophole that allows the QLD and NSW shark culling programs to kill unlimited amounts of protected wildlife without any formal environmental ass

The NSW Government’s 2025 Shark Meshing Program began in September, and hidden Government files obtained regarding the first month of operation have already exposed a troubling reality. Images obtained under the state’s Freedom of Information Act (GIPA) reveal that on the first fortnight of the shark nets being redeployed, a tiger shark, one of the DPI’s ‘target species , was caught and killed on the Central Coast’s Shelly Beach, and left to attract larger sharks to the area.

A juvenile humpback whale has tragically drowned after becoming entangled in a shark net at Coledale Beach, NSW, marking yet another failure of the NSW Shark Meshing Program. The young whale, like thousands of others migrating along Australia’s east coast, was on its southerly journey back to Antarctica when it became ensnared. This whale never made it home. Despite the NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) claiming to remove shark nets during the whale migration season,