A man who survived two shark attacks is calling for the shark fishery to be reopened following the death of Singleton teenager Laeticia Brouwer.
Greg Pickering suffered wounds to his head, shoulder, face and back after being attacked by a great white while diving for abalone east of Esperance in 2013.
Mr Pickering was also bitten on the leg by a 1.5m bronze whaler shark in Cervantes in March 2004.
He said action needs to be taken to reduce great white shark numbers in WA.
“If we want to make our waters safe we need to introduce some kind of fishing practice to lower numbers. I think we should catch sharks commercially," Mr Pickering told Seven News.
The 59-year-old told The West Australian he has seen an increase in shark numbers since taking up abalone diving 37 years ago.
“There wasn’t any. You never saw them. That’s changed now. You’ve got a situation where the numbers have built right back up again. I don’t think a lot of people understand that. The numbers are very high. I’d say they’re similar to what they were in the 1960s,” he said.
“I’ve seen more sharks over the last few years than in the 20 or 30 years before that.”
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