Businesses closing, deserted beaches, no one surfing…
Whatever you think of the ethics of fishing for dangerous sharks, you can’t argue that shark attacks are good for business. Oowee, Ballina, just down the coast there from Byron Bay, is suddenly a ghost town.
In February, surfer Tadashi Nakahara was killed by a white. A month ago a bodyboarder was hit by a white and is still in hospital. Last week, a little further down the coast, a surfer fought off a white. This afternoon, a shark knocked a surfer off his board.
The Ballina council has been dropping 16k every weekend for a chopper to patrol the beaches. What doth it see? Seven great whites, some ten feet long, some closer to twenty, plying the near coastal waters.
Close Ballina’s fabulous beaches ’cause there’s sharks and what else have you got? You want tourists to come play in their cavernous mall? Stroll the aisles of a regional K-Mart?
“I’ve been in Ballina or Byron Bay all my life and I’ve never seen anything like it,” Ballina shire mayor David Wright said at a community meeting held on Monday night. “People who have surfed every morning for 40 years are not going in. People are pulling out of holidays from caravan parks and other accommodation. If you’ve seen the Mick Fanning footage, that’s happened 10 or 11 times in this area this year.”
According to the Sydney Morning Herald,
“Surfers on the NSW north coast have overwhelmingly voted for a partial cull of sharks following an unprecedented number of attacks and sightings along the world-famous coastline. The extraordinary development came during a heated community meeting on Monday night, in which residents were told some businesses were about to fold because visitors were too scared to come to the area for beach holidays. Le-Ba Boardriders Club president Don Munro, who organised the meeting for boardriders from Byron, Ballina and Evans Head shires, said about 95 per cent of the 200 people present voted in support of ‘controlled management or culling.
“It would involve killing sharks that have caused repeated problems, such as the seven regular great whites spotted in aerial patrols.
“Surfers are more environmentally aware than most, we live in the water, we have an appreciation that we’re in their domain but … now it’s just gone crazy and no one really knows why,” he said. “The thing is, what price do we put on a life?”
zzzzzzzzzzz
just suggesting that killing sharks is hardly the example you need to point to when discussing “everything you need to know about humans”.
White people culled blacks in SA for decades. Just saying.
fuck sharks!
if we had to cull stalkers there’d be a trail of dead behind Chas and Derek. or would Chas and Derek be culled. hard to say.
More people looking, more sharks seen. SIMPLE. More people in the water – surfing, swimming, bodyboarding, bodysurfing, SUPing, fishing, helicopters, lookouts, shark patrols, stressed mothers – more chances of attacks. Needs to be proper research into the matter before we start shooting them. I don’t think the sharks should be put on some kind of holy pedestal either but I don’t think shooting seven whites is exactly a wonderful long-term solution.
I think we are well past that equation of more people looking= more sharks seen Mr X.
There’s far less people in the water around here at the moment, pretty much deserted south of Flat Rock. You want to surf North Wall? You’ll have it to yourself day after day.
And the sightings and encounters keep happening. So we have a cohort of medium to large whites set up shop here. Thats not a function of any kind of increased surveillance.
less surfers that has to be good?
So how do we workout a guilty shark from a not guilty shark…..or did the meeting conclude with lets kill the 7 and see if that fixes the problem of less sharks in the water?
In both the Paul Cox Byron attack and the Matt Lee North Wall attack the shark hung around for hours. It would have been easy to dispatch that particular shark. In fact a kill order was issued by the DPI after the Matt Lee incident but they were too slow in acting. That order was rescinded the next day, despite another attack at Lennox Point the following morning.
So removing a “guilty” shark following at attack is pretty straightforwards.
Thing is, no-one here really wants to be the guy ripping off legropes, applying tourniquets to their mate while he/she turns grey and bleeds out on the beach just to catch the shark in the act.
Steve , I am a bit confused by your answers , at the meeting the other night , what was the method of culling the sharks and do you just kill them all?
there are 7 sharks at present in your area, do you kill them all, or just the guilty looking ones?
So are you in favor of culling , if so how, all , some, or stop surfing?
there was no method discussed but old school fishos with heavy gear would be the traditional method. No bycatch, highly targeted.
To be honest my views are still evolving. Reluctantly I’ve shifted to a limited cull. Personally I think removing one of the very large sharks with the carcass left in the water for a while might break the pattern in the short term and scare off the large sharks from the very shallow water they are cruising in. We know white sharks are very cautious predators and dead sharks of their own species are thought to keep them away, although I don’t know that for sure.
Prior to that and tomorrow I’d like to see them tagged but my understanding is that is a long process.
White sharks are protected but there are already exemptions granted under the act for the shark control program in both NSW and QLD. There were 10 white sharks killed by the netting program in NSW last year.
Medium to long term there are methods involving sonar and maybe other non lethal deterrence that need to be researched, trialled and implemented.
“I think the numbers are increasing rapidly, very rapidly,” he said.
The explosion in social media users, Matthew said has made shark sightings more common.
“There’s nothing different to years ago except now when things like this get on social media they just take off,” he said.
“They’ve always been there.”
Interesting reading the most recent article. Mr. Matthew agrees that numbers are on the rise in a big way but he also outlines the impact social media has on the matter. Take the drone shot of the shark at Broken Head, 3 years ago that shark would have swum by unnoticed. How many more instances are there like that??
Steve , sounds like there was a very emotional meeting , where fear ruled , culling was pronounced as a short term solution,but no actual plan how to cull with what and who , based on very shaky short term facts.
To have an infrastructure in place to identify and cull whites , we still comeback to which ones do we cull?
Over here in WA the hysteria has died down now, the drums didn’t catch a white , but another 140+ sharks were caught , the crowds are down , maybe the fear being shown by the BB crew , is a form of culling , worked for DH after the J-Bay comp.
I agree that there is a need for more info on sharks but knee jerk culling is not going to achieve anything accept a false sense of security .
You might be right. I think time will tell. If there are further encounters/attacks in the short term there’ll be increasing urgency with respect to management.
If things settle for a while then’ll medium/long term solutions will have more room to breathe.
Your efforts to paint this as a knee jerk, fear based reaction are bit off base though. The one things we have learnt is that 7 large whites are stationed in this area. The number of attacks/encounters is unprecedented. So the response is quite rational and proportionate to the threat.
Take a look at the NT crocodile management plan. A very similar top order, long lived predator. After protection and increasing numbers they now have management in place which does include heavily managed areas, limited culls, removal etc etc. Yet, not a word of outrage.
http://lrm.nt.gov.au/__data…
If white shark encounters/attacks keep increasing it’s inevitable that we will move to some form of management. There already is in QLD/NSW.
Steve , my point with the fear knee jerk reaction is that at the meeting 95% asked for culling of GWS. As there are 7 in your area , was a decision made to cull the 7 GWS’s or was the decision just an emotional one where the 95% went home and felt good for a night?
So what was the rationale and proportionate response?
I am sure that where I live there are a lot of GWS’s and have seen quite a few over the years , but we can t see them like you guys can , as its too remote. But to think because we can’t see them , they are not there , is probably better , I just think now we have helicopters/drones etc , plus the social media system , theres a lot of hype , which in turn becomes fear .
I take your point but it’s more than seeing them.
The attacks/encounters/bumpings show that these are more than disinterested observers.
White came in close at the Point last Fri and had a very close look at a kid then turned and went straight for a mat rider. That stuff now isn’t even reportable. It was in 3 ft of water.
steve , really starting to wonder about the meeting….which has been reported as a surfers meeting ,in which it was decided that culling was the way forward , but no real cull plan.
seems like a lot of emotion and as I previously mentioned fear being the main emotion.
the fact that the white did not attack and just looked and maybe bumped the lidder…shows the GWS as interested but not hungry??
Not sure why you are so hung up on the “plan” of culling. The actual How of it is the least vexatious issue. You send an experienced shark fisho out there. It’s not rocket science.
So this shark wasn’t hungry, just another close encounter. There have been bumpings, buzzings, investigative bites. Guys dead, guys in hospital. Thing is these whites sure as shit aren’t just swimming around peacefully beside surfers. They are big, they are in close and they are curious.
Why do you keep trying to paint this as some kind of emotional over-reaction? Most people have thought deeply about it. They want the close in whites that are hanging around taken out before someone else gets bit
If you want to boil it down to a moral judgement, most people, having thought it through, have decided they value the lives of their friends over that of a shark.
well said. that’s the crux of the matter.
Steve,I am not,” hung up on the plan of culling,” you and your surfing mates are , just like what happened over here in WA.
I am simply trying to drill down into the reasoning behind your support of culling and why .
“the least vexatious issue,” is the actual how.
You say you have fished a big part of your life , and say if there is an attack or sighting , a shark fisherman just goes and kills the shark.,but which one ?
or are you saying that all the 7 sharks that are presently in the area should be culled ,which is what I read into your comments.
Because you have thought deeply about this issue,thats why I am trying to workout your culling plan.
As so far the plan doesn’t seem to have much substance and a lot of empty rhetoric , which is why it looks like fear and emotion seem to be the active in your meeting , just like the meetings in WA .
The stats just show there has been an enormous increase in surfers / swimmers /scuba divers on the East Coast in the last 30 yrs or so , and now because we have better surveillance we actually can see all the sharks .
So to surf and increase crowds ,we have to kill off all the apex predators?
steve no answers , so how deep is your thought on culling?
I think you have been exposed as having a pretty shallow argument, and the fear is a natural form of culling,ask DH at J bay.
grow a pair and get out there!!
Im so with you on the evolving state of view on the matter… A year ago I would have flat out said NO to any form of culling. But lately, with whats been happening! I’m climbing out of my box.
Seriously, would you play a game of cricket in South Africa in the presence of wild lions?
Thats just one of the tiredest, most irrelevant arguments being forward Kirra. But please, feel free to actually research how wild animal/human interactions are managed in South Africa before spouting off.
Why would I want to research how wild animal/human interactions are managed in South Africa when it has absolutely nothing to do with my statement?
Because you used it as an example. A bad one.
The (conservative) state government rules out a cull and favours detection and deterrence strategies, the Mayor calls for immediate further research, and yet…well, just look at that headline! The commonest of common sense is gaining traction. A populist movement to take back the oceans looms. Shall there be a rally? Will the movement be called Reclaim Surf?
which sharks do you cull?
The Guilty ones who have been thinking ,hmm that homosapien looks good?
Or is is the glint in their eye, or their proximity to the coast or, the recycled remains being shat out or???
reclaim the planet from fear if it scares you kill it.
btw Derek, we don’t have any malls of note here and the K-Mart is one of the finest in the land, easily able to hold it’s own on a global scale.
Ballina Fair? Ballina Central? And it is a very good K-Mart, yes… I drew a very long bow on that one…
good. long overdue.
They’re fish. People fish everyday. Why are these fish any different. Apex predator? Please. Lion kills person, cull lion. Dog, bear etc? Same thing. Take away the emotional hippy argument, it is very tired. Cull.
Nailed it.
Wow, 95% of local surfers agree with the Cull.. Funny that it seems 90% of people on Stab and Beach Grit seem to be against it. Says a lot about the demographic. That or maybe the silly argument against the cull doesn’t hold much water once the sharks start killing your best mates.
” 95% of local surfers” my arse!! A meeting of 200 people in Lennox/Ballina does not constitute an accurate sample of the regions surfing population…I grew up there and my FB feed is choked with anti cull sentiment (not saying that’s an accurate sample either) On another note, why should anyone but a marine biologists opinion be considered in this argument, as surfers our depth of knowledge of the ocean is limited to the top 2 metres.
If you have to ask “Why are these fish are any different….”, then your call for a cull should be rightly ignored.
Yeah, good comment with nothing to back it up. “Rightly ignored”? Super arrogant comment.
If you need me to back up that comment, then quite arrogantly, your call for a cull should be ignored.
wah. they’re fish. Kill 1000 of them near the coast and the species will survive just fine.
Can we not overlook the fact that the old mate Munro believes surfers “live in the water”
hopefully the sharks have a chew on your mullet next time you hit the water Gillespie
Links deadski Derek
…Nick is fast! Link back in. Thank you!
That is the very weird thing. Read any social media and you’d think the great white shark was a kind of angelic being as gentle as a butterfly in spring. Deserving of not just protection, but a kind of worship.
Talk to any local surfer and they’d like a couple of the big brutes that have been stalking us for months taken out. They don’t want a mass killing of oceanic life, just a very targeted and limited cull.
That feeling was clearly and unambiguously expressed at the community meeting on Mon night.
so what proof have you that the sharks have been stalking you?
Do you want to kill all 7 sharks or just the ones who have been stalking you?
Thought about trying to tag them so you know where they are?
Or if it scares you,kill it?
I think tagging them should be the first order of business. We need to try and understand why they are hanging around here, although latest white shark research does indicate philopatry and site fidelity. The evidence at the moment is continued aerial observation of identifiable white sharks and continuing encounters.
Thats not BS written on the internet, that is current reality.
Fear? I have healthy respect and am surfing for shorter periods of time, keeping an eye out.
Twice in the past month the chopper has identified and cleared the water at breaks I’ve been surfing after spotting large whites in close proximity.
Out of curiosity, do you have shark attack nightmares? I know they inhabit the heads of a few guys in WA…
I’ve had a couple of visions just before sleep but funnily enough I’ve felt pretty relaxed when I’m actually in the water.
Been chased out the water 3 times at the Point in the last 2 years but that too isn’t as scary as I would have thought. If you see one it’s probably not going to attack you. Maybe “chased” is the wrong word. Investigated might be more accurate.
I don’t believe the surfing community here are bloodthirsty cowboys, most have come to the conclusion that a limited cull is a necessary step in the short term very reluctantly.
Medium and long term we’ll all have to find a way to co-exist with what seems to be increasing numbers of white sharks.
…yeah, the game sure is changing. Who knew an abstract paranoia would one day become reality?
I can hear the chopper buzzing the Point right now.
Sounds like some ultra-realistic Jaws sequel… Who plays you? Jackman? Crowe?
Or Rebel Wilson?
at the meeting , was there a general consensus on how to cull the sharks…and which ones?
Its a really interesting discussion on how you actually cull the guilty sharks…?