Great white shark caught in nets at Sydney's Bondi Beach

The carcass of a 2.5 metre great white shark was found in a shark net off Sydney's Bondi Beach.

The shark was discovered during routine insepctions by Department of Primary Industry staff this morning.

An autopsy will now be carried out on the shark, reports BBC News.

The Mayor of Waverley Council, Sally Betts said there is no cause for alarm.

"I'm surprised it's a great white and it's quite large, but we do have sharks that periodically swim past all our beaches, very few of them come in," she said.

"We don't know why this one came in, it could have been a school of fish and the shark followed them.

"As soon as they go past the nets they get this sonar sensitivity and they normally panic a bit and turn around."

Many of Sydney's beaches have nets to protect the public from sharks but they do not stretch across the entire beach.

According to ABC News, the nets are not designed to create a total barrier between swimmers and sharks.

"They are designed to deter sharks from establishing territories, thereby reducing the odds of a shark encounter," a statement by The Department of Primary Industry said.

The nets are only set for eight months of the year - from September to April.

They are checked every 72 hours to see if any marine life was caught and set free if possible.

The meshing programme has caught and killed thousands of sharks since they were introduced.