The pingers have been developed by a regional manufacturer of acoustic equipment to give off a louder and longer noise than previous designs.
This is thought to make them more easily heard by the large population of whales which migrates through the area at this time of year.
The pingers are being attached to shark nets laid along Queensland shores. Traditionally a number of migrating whales swim accidentally into shark nets each year.
Often they are juveniles, which tend to venture closer inshore than adults.
Last year, six whales became trapped and, fortunately, all were freed without harm by Queensland’s Marine Animal Release Team.
Queensland is “committed to minimising the impacts of its shark control programme on non-target species such as whales”, Tim Mulherin, Minister for Primary Industries, Fisheries, Rural and Regional Queensland, told press.
The new pingers are intended to “alert whales to the presence of nets” and not to “scare them away from the equipment”.
Tony Ham, Shark Control Programme Manager for Fisheries Queensland, said that there would be “90 pingers in the water at any one time – that’s three on each net from Mackay to the Gold Coast”.
If the trial goes well, the plan will be to have Queensland shark nets set up with pingers from May to November every year.
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