Is this proof that Geelong Star killed a whale shark?

In a joint press release on the Tasmanian Times website, Rebecca Hubbard from Environment Tasmania and Neil (Nobby) Clark from Game Fish Tasmania Sports Fishing Club have revealed troubling "leaked" images of what appears to be a protected whale shark from the deck of the controversial Geelong Star factory trawler.

An informant who claims to be a crew member of the Geelong Star has been attributed with leaking the images of the apparent whale shark which has been at the centre of a Freedom of Information battle with government since March 2016.

The images show a shark hanging from its tail and slumped on the back deck of the vessel. We can't tell if the critter is a whale shark, but certainly the Geelong Star reported catching one.

Lobby group Stop the Trawler Coordinator, Rebecca Hubbard, says the leaked images dramatically increase the pressure on Government to release footage of the Geelong Star’s treatment of the protected animal, which has created uproar ever since government, industry and crew made conflicting claims about the whale shark’s survival in February.

"It’s time for the government to come clean and release the footage of the whale shark incident," Ms Hubbard said. "The public wants the truth; releasing the actual evidence is the only way the Government can put this controversy to bed and restore public confidence in management of our fisheries.

"This type of leak — showing a possibly dead whale shark strung up by its tail — reignites concerns that the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) haven’t revealed the whole truth about the monster trawler’s treatment of protected species.

"There is no way the government can in all honesty now repeat that it isn’t in the public interest to release video footage of what actually happened," Ms Hubbard said.

Nobby Clark from Game Fish Tasmania Sports Fishing Club, added that: "Recreational fishers are sick to death of government refusing to
release the evidence of the super trawler’s fishing practices.

"If they have nothing to hide, if they haven’t breached their shark handling protocol, then why the hell are they so scared to release the footage and why are we reliant on leaked, blurry images to get to the truth," Clark said.

The Stop the Trawler Alliance, together with Environment Tasmania, is in the midst of a Freedom of Information request and currently challenging the AFMA's assessment that the release of the footage of the whale shark incident is not in the public interest.

Crew members of the Geelong Star initially leaked the news that a whale shark had been caught by the super trawler, even though there had been no immediate public reporting of the incident.

The PR group for the Geelong Star’s owners tried to cover up the incident by making a false statement on social media that "the whale shark come alongside the net and the vessel maneuvered away and the whale shark swam off unharmed."

AFMA initially assured the public on 19th February that the Geelong Star’s interaction only involved "a whale shark ran into the outside of the net and became caught by two of its fins. The whale shark was subsequently freed from the net and swam away without difficulty. No injuries to the animal were observed."

On 24th February AFMA released a statement on their website reporting that: "video footage shows that the whale shark spent no more than four minutes out of the water. That is, the time from the animal being brought onto the boat, freed and being released back into the water was estimated to be 3min 35sec."

Environment Tasmania submitted a Freedom of Information request for all documents and footage relating to protected species interactions with the Geelong Star on 10th March, to which AFMA responded it would cost $33,867.50 to provide.

Environment Tasmania subsequently reduced our Freedom of Information request to footage, data and correspondence specifically relating to the whale shark incident on 25th May, and were informed on 17th June by AFMA that they did not believe this was in the public interest and would not waive the re-assessed fee of $1080.50.

The Government has also informed Environment Tasmania that the owners of the Geelong Star will have an opportunity to block the release of the footage as it is deemed "commercial in confidence".

The Geelong Star is trawling in the Small Pelagic Fishery along the Eastern Seaboard and removing great chunks of the biomass of baitfish upon which game fisheries, fishing tourism and many top marine predators depend. Game fishers release and tag more than 90 per cent of the fish they target and they certainly don't catch whale sharks. More at the Stop the Trawler Alliance facebook page.

Credit: This press release and the images were from Tasmaniantimes.com.