Dateline: Apr 8

The timely topic of shark culling is in focus this week on Dateline, but it centres around the French island of La Reunion, 6,000km west of Australia.

The culling of sharks in Western Australia has brought protestors out in their thousands, demanding an end to the culling process.

But a series of shark attacks in the waters of the French island of La Reunion – 6,000 kilometres west of Australia – has triggered the opposite reaction: the islanders overwhelmingly want sharks hunted and killed.

On Tuesday’s Dateline, David O’Shea travels to La Reunion to look at ‘the French Solution’ – a complete ban on swimming and surfing on most of the island, and orders by the French government to capture and kill scores of sharks there.

“As far as I am concerned, I don’t want to go around killing any animals, but there is a certain time that it has to be done, call it a cull or whatever you want.” Australian Surfer, Mick Aspery, tells David O’Shea on La Reunion.

With the islanders having experienced thirteen shark attacks – five of them fatal – in the past three years, most there share Aspery’s ‘pro-kill’ view. But David finds that some on the island are looking at anti-cull protests in Perth and wondering whether the French have gone too far?

Tuesday, April 8 at 9.30pm on SBS ONE.