HUMAN-CETACEAN INTERACTIONS
Human-cetacean interactions have increased with the greater numbers of people utilising coastal waters for recreation, fishing and transport and may also be attributed in part to the increasing numbers of hump-backed whales travelling along the east and west coasts of Australia as their populations grow (Groom and Coughran 2012).
Boat strikes, net, rope, crab-pot line and fishing line entanglements are common and increasing, particularly where cetaceans are being illegally fed (Donaldson et al. 2010; Lloyd and Ross 2015). More shark nets are being deployed along the Australian coastline, dramatically increasing the incidence of entanglement of cetaceans. Boat-strikes and entanglements, including animals caught in government-sanctioned shark control program nets and drum lines, accounted for the majority of cetacean stranding and mortality incidents from 2006 to 2015 in Qld (Meager 2016). An increasing trend in the incidence of these incidents has been identified in Qld since 1996 (Meager and Sumpton 2016). Records indicate that the number of cetaceans being stranded in SA has increased over time and markedly since 1970, with anthropogenic incidents the most common cause (Segawa and Kemper 2015).ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I thank Drs James Bailey and Michael Walsh for their assistance with this chapter; Dr Duan March for his revision of the chapter and Mark Blyde for his assistance with the illustrations and figures.
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