Whales, crocodiles and dolphins: The painful toll of Queensland's shark program

The measures, designed to protect beach goers from attack, are also killing hundreds of sharks each year, as many species already suffer declining populations across the world.

Figures from the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries show that there were 510 sharks captured by Queensland's shark control program in 2017. Of those, 377 died, 113 were euthanised and only 20 were released alive.

Several threatened shark species were among the haul, including scalloped hammerhead (20 caught - all dead) and white shark (five caught - two dead and three euthanised).

There were also 132 "non-target" species caught in 2017. Of those, 73 were released alive but 59 died.

The other species captured included two bottlenosed dolphins, six common dolphins, one crocodile, six green turtles, eight humpback whales, 13 loggerhead turtles and various types of ray.

Australian Marine Conservation Society spokeswoman Ingrid Neilson said it was woeful that threatened and endangered sharks were being killed.

"As a group, sharks are fragile and imperilled," she said.

"They are biologically more like whales and dolphins; they are long-lived and have few offspring, which makes them vulnerable to pressures on their population.

"As a species group, sharks and rays are in global decline, with a quarter of them threatened with extinction."

Ms Neilson said declining populations of sharks worldwide was bad news for sharks and also for healthy oceans.

"Sharks are 'keystone species', which means that as top predators, they are extremely important in maintaining the balance in marine ecosystems," she said.

Ms Neilson said sharks had an undeserved poor reputation, influenced by popular culture, but even the creator of the book and film Jaws, Peter Benchley, dedicated the rest of his life to shark conservation.

"The fact is that we are just not part of a shark's diet," she said.

"Hundreds of millions of people go swimming around the world every day of the year and sharks kill an average of 10 people each year.

"Almost 300 people drowned in Australia alone last year."

Ms Neilson said shark nets and drum lines should be removed and replaced with non-lethal technologies, such as drones, increased patrols and SMART drumlines, which instantly alert authorities that a shark has been snared.

Ms Neilson said it was devastating that other species were also being captured by the nets and drum lines.

"Dolphins and whales are intelligent social animals that are protected in Australia, yet we set nets and drumlines in the water every day, with the knowledge that they will be caught and killed," she said.

"All of Australia's sea turtles are threatened with extinction, yet they're caught and killed.

"Rays and tiger sharks are clobbered by them. When was the last time a tiger shark hurt anybody? They're beautiful creatures that are majestic and shy."

The numbers of sharks caught by Queensland's drum lines and nets last year was the lowest on record, according to open data stretching back to the 1980s.

There were 911 sharks caught in Queensland in 1995-96 and 489 sharks caught in 2016-17.

Griffith University PhD student Johann Gustafson, who was researching hammerhead movements, said sharks randomly encountered the nets, so they could not be used as a definitive guide to the growth or decline of the population, but it was an anecdotal estimation.

Weather and water temperatures also affected shark movements, he said.

The World Wildlife Fund lists the growing trade in shark fins, overfishing and bycatch as threats to sharks.

A spokesman for Fisheries Minister Mark Furner said the safety of Queenslanders and tourists who visited beaches was the government's main priority.

"Any moves to remove the protections on our beaches will place lives at risk," he said.

"Based on evidence to date, traditional capture methods remain the most effective measures to reduce the risk of a shark attack."

The spokesman said improvements in the types of netting, hooks and baits had improved the ability to reduce non-target catch, including some shark species.

"Research into the types of sharks in certain locations and the positioning of nets and/or drum lines has also made the program more efficient," he said.

"The shark control program is continually monitoring improvements in technology.

"It is acknowledged that new shark control technologies exist, however they are still nearly all in development phase and have not been trialled successfully on a large scale for the marine environment."

The spokesman said Queensland was monitoring smart drum line trials in New South Wales and if new technologies were shown to be effective, they would be considered as part of Queensland's program.

Since the start of the program in 1962, there has been only one shark-related fatality at a shark controlled beach in Queensland.

Shark control equipment is in place at 85 beaches at 10 centres throughout Queensland, protecting less than 0.5 per cent of Queensland's east coast.