Drone operator Geoff Aquino rushed down to Noosa Beach yesterday and put his camera up to get a closer look at the distressed mother and baby as they moved up the coastline.

“After a few moments I saw she was trying to roll because the baby was under her,” Aquino said.

“It was gasping, begging for air.”

“The baby looked like a little mummy really, it was severely entangled,” Aquino said.

After struggling for hours and dragging the knotted netting with them, a shark control program contractor was sent out to free the pair.

“They’ve expended a lot of energy and been under a lot of stress,” Envoy Foundation co-founder and director Andre Borell said.

The incident has reignited debate on whether shark nets should be pulled from the state’s coastline.  

“There’s technology out there now that allows us to co-exist, we just don’t use it in Queensland,” Borell said.