Monday, August 23, 2010

3944 Animals over 20 Years? Wonky Shark Net Math

The Australian Gov just announced that, over the past 20 years, shark nets designed to keep swimmers safe off Australian beaches have entangled an additional 3944 animals from rays to whales.

3944 animals over 20 years?

Somehow this number seems a bit low. Granted these nets are up on a seasonal basis September through April, but one might assume many more animals have been caught given that some 47 nets are in place.

We're going to look into this, contacting the actual vessels involved in netting operations and the conservationists on the other side of this issue who are calling for a take down of the nets.

If there's one thing we have come to discover about government statistics, wonky math tends to rule the day one hard data gets filtered though politico's.

Let's see if there's a story behind this story.