Tagging is trauma! And it might be making 'em bite…
You know how Great Whites are tagged? They’re either dragged aboard a boat in a sling and jabbed with the satellite tracker or it gets stuck into the fish via a harpoon.
Great Whites ain’t dumb. They’re going to go searching for the son of a bitch who knifed ’em.
You tag ’em, they’re going to come back and bite.
At least that’s the theory in a story that appeared in The Australian recently, a story written by the surfer Fred Pawle, and backed by compelling evidence.
And let’s be honest, Fred is more than happy to call a spade a spade.
One common factor in six of the attacks is that they occurred within or adjacent to areas where researchers are tagging sharks or dive-boat operators are trying to turn them into tourist attractions.
In the story, Better to cull sharks than stir them up with tags, Fred reports:
“There have been seven serious shark attacks reported around the world in the past month. Three were fatal: surfer Laeticia Brouwer, 17, in Esperance; surfer Adrien Dubosc, 30, at Reunion Island; and Austrian diving instructor Leopold Mairhuber, 68, in South Africa. Of the other four, one involved a partial leg amputation (Kauai, Hawaii) and a near fatal bite to the thigh (southern California).
“One common factor in six of the attacks is that they occurred within or adjacent to areas where researchers are tagging sharks or dive-boat operators are trying to turn them into tourist attractions.
“It hardly bears repeating that none of them occurred in Queensland, where a program of nets and drum lines has been keeping ocean lovers safe for 55 years.
“Brouwer was attacked at a beach near Esperance, 80km from Salisbury island, where an Australian researcher, working with filmmakers commissioned by the US Discovery Channel, had been tagging sharks, with state government approval, two months earlier. Esperance also is one of the sites where the CSIRO and the West Australian Department of Fisheries have tagged great whites through the years. In 2014, surfer Sean Pollard was attacked by two sharks there, losing one arm and a forearm. Two sharks, one tagged, were caught and destroyed.
“The DoF has said repeatedly it is “unknown” whether the tagged shark was involved in the attack.
“The tagging program in Western Australia was initiated because of the increase in attacks, says Rick Fletcher of the Department of Fisheries. It was “funded to investigate the series of attacks that had occurred in 2012”, he says.
“The NSW DPI’s main tagging program is off Ballina. There have been five serious attacks (two fatal) and scores of close encounters in the area in the past three years. Asked if the department has considered if there is a causal relationship, the DPI also says its program has been in response to attacks.
“In Reunion Island, however, where the first of nine fatal attacks began in 2011, the same year as a two-year tagging program, local surfers are critical of the response by researchers.
“Tagging is trauma,” says protester Jean Nativel. “And the ones that have been hooked are very difficult to recapture. We have tagged 80 monsters and released them in front of the beaches to watch if they are going to attack. And they have. If these sharks were fished instead of tagged, we would have saved lives.”
And,
“Byron Bay council, one of the organisations invited to address the inquiry, last year embraced its own method to deal with the problem — Shark Watch, a program developed in Cape Town, South Africa, involving people sitting on towers staring at the water. The program was launched last year with the endorsement of state MP Tamara Smith, and the promise of $11,000 from the council.
Tagging is trauma,” says protester Jean Nativel. “And the ones that have been hooked are very difficult to recapture. We have tagged 80 monsters and released them in front of the beaches to watch if they are going to attack. And they have.
“Byron Bay mayor Simon Richardson tells Inquirer the program has been put on hold after problems caused by Cyclone Debbie and will “recommence shortly”.
“Surfing Australia chief executive Andrew Stark told the Senate inquiry that such surveillance methods were useless anyway. When pro surfer Mick Fanning was attacked in South Africa in 2015, it was live on TV, he said. “There was more surveillance than you could imagine. There were 10 cameras, thousands of people on the beach, spotters, and people looking straight at him … and no one saw that great white shark.”
“Stark said surfers felt safer 80km north, in Queensland. “I know of many surfers that used to travel down here to surf in Byron and northern NSW that stay on the Gold Coast now because they feel inherently safer,” he said.
You biting Fred’s theory? That tagging is creating a generation of unamused Great Whites? That the feel-good thing of watching sharks appear as blips on computer screens might be killing people?
Oowee, it’s a hell of a posit.
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So to be clear, I never said sharks sought vengeance for being tagged. That was Derek. My story reported a geographical correlation between tagging and attacks. I included defensive responses from two organisations responsible for tagging, so both sides of the story were included. Only a dipshit could turn this into a “cynical” “theory” that “sharks think like a human”.
As for Nick Carroll, mate, I’m stoked that after more than 30 years as a “journalist” you are finally having a crack at a serious topic, but if you’re going to adopt a pompous tone, make sure you get your facts right. Otherwise you just look like a wanker. And stop being naive. Even researchers are admitting these days that tagging is unlikely to reveal “what the hell they are up to”. You might also elaborate on the “mitigation programs” that will supposedly benefit from tagging. Whatever they are, we should probably implement them pretty soon. As we’ve been saying in The Australian for more than two years, nets, drumlines and fishing are the only proven “mitigation programs”, and should be reinstated around the nation as soon as possible. It astonishes me that the “world’s best known surf writer” and surf journalists in general are so timid about a topic that is killing and maiming their readers, and causing others to give up surfing.
“Peter”, “Seas nail” and “nwwaves”… thanks for maintaining BG’s “anti-depressive” tone.
I had no idea who he was until Beach Grit – but now as soon as I see “Fred Pawle” cited in an article I stop reading. That’s one shitty dude!
Ah yeah the Byron Bay and Ballina fatalities, along with most of the subsequent attacks by great white sharks in that area in the following year, occurred prior to the DPI tagging program. The program has been in full swing now for a year, during which time there has been one attack, which resulted in minor injury.
There’s no evidence whatsoever that tagging great white sharks causes them to adopt a vengeful program of human assassination. Tagged sharks can be tracked pretty easily, hell they are constantly tracked along Australia’s east coast. You can see where they are on a regular basis. Finding out what the hell they are up to is gonna really count for something in mitigation programs. Projecting human behaviour on to them is kind of a waste of energy.
The DPI tagging program began Sep 15……….there were 3 attacks last year 2016 ….
Cooper Allan North Wall Sep26: moderate leg injury.
Seneca Rus Sharpes Beach Oct12: Minor leg injury
`Jade Fitzpatrick Broken Head Oct24: Moderate leg injury.
I don’t say that to disagree with your point , just to make sure the conversation stays on a factual basis.
btw, my personal theory based on a lifetime fishing is that the tagging of sharks is far more likely to make them wary of humans and human interactions than the reverse.
Yep fair point. The program went to another level after the Oct 12 attack — that’s when they ordered up and began setting all the extra drumlines, and decided to mesh some beaches. I guess I am referring to that ramp up in relation to the subsequent cessation of attacks.
yeah, it’ll be interesting to see what happens now.
3 more whites tagged in the last week at Ballina/Evans so we are seeing the seasonal abundance of white sharks increasing, which seems to be the new normal here. And I’m very grateful for the tagging data which shows this. Because the initial and sustained response from academics/marine scientists was that there was no basis for the surfer/fisherman view that white shark numbers were increasing. That view has now become increasingly harder to argue against with the weight of tagging data.
The increase in abundance of juvenile/sub-adult sharks here is consistent with a rebounding population of white sharks. Otherwise we need some new theory to account for it.
check this out (fucking promo)
http://www.coastalwatch.com…
behind a paywall?
Is there any confirmed data from DPI that shows if a previously caught/tagged white on a drumline, has been caught again via drumline?
Or do they in fact learn to only take bait on drumline once.
Happy for some research, but can somebody please explain why we keep tag and release Bull sharks, their not in any danger of extinction.
Would anyone at DPI have said at the start we’d be up to 90 Whites tagged in Nth NSW now within 18months…doubt it.
far as I know two tagged sharks have been recaptured.
CSIRO’s Barry Bruce, December 2000: “(Tagging will) predict the areas where encounters … are more common.”
Barry Bruce, December 2006: “The input of information about where sharks are likely to be and where they go can be used to perhaps better target some other resources … looking after people.”
Barry Bruce, September 2015: “The reason that we’re doing the tagging (off Ballina) is to better inform us what causes these temporary aggregation sites so that we can give (sic) a much … more rational way of responding to these events.”
There have been two notable “events” since Bazz started tagging his little pets: northern NSW, 2013-15 (three fatalities, two of them surfers) and the greater southwest of WA (Lancelin to Esperance, 11 deaths, eight of them surfers).
Number of “events” “predicted” by Barry Bruce: 0
West Australian Department of Fisheries report into one of the biggest tagging operations in history, April 2016: White sharks’ movements are “highly variable” and “not consistent”. Also, “it is unlikely that a greater period of data collection will generate an overall predictive model (of shark behaviour).”
NSW DPI’s Vic Peddemors, December 2016: “The best way I can describe their movements is like if you drop a bag of marbles. They go everywhere.”
Nick Carroll, the self-proclaimed “world’s best known surf writer”, May 2017: “Finding out what the hell they are up to is gonna really count for something in mitigation programs.”
Keep knocking back that Kool-Aid, Nick
Try not to get personal in this stuff Fred, it’s not about you or me eh.
Try not to incorrectly correct someone else’s work, Nick. And if you’re accusing someone of wasting energy “projecting human behaviour” onto sharks, it’d help if you are specific about who you are referring to. Certainly don’t insinuate it was me.
They should place underwater audio speakers in line-ups frequented by great whites and play orca whale vocalizations like pulsed calls, echolocation and jaw clapping. Great whites scatter like roaches when orcas are nearby.
And then attract a bunch of orcas! Awesome!
Right! That’s what I was thinking! Orcas just want to entertain us, I learned this at Sea World when I was really young.
Look what orcas are doing to great whites in Cape Town, SA. Orcas don’t normally attack whites because of low fat content. However, great whites apparently have an iron rich liver.
Here’s a link to a Cape news article:
http://www.iol.co.za/capeti…
If we supplied sharks with cans of spray paint and cinder-block walls and billboard signs, we might witness sharks moving away from their own violent carnage style reciprocal tagging.
The dude who jumps in at 0:48 is on some serious Steve Irwin shit.
Hahaha
That’s all I keep thinking about…. that dude is an animal
Obviously he isn’t saying the sharks are out for revenge. Abused dogs often have to be put down because of irreversible aggression caused by trauma. Why would sharks be any different? Quantifiable evidence of trauma (from tagging/catch and release) affecting predatory fishes behavior is available online (Google Scholar). Fred isn’t speaking out of his ass.
The irony behind this is that it would make the same people responsible for the protection of Great Whites and their subsequent population explosion..the marine biologists…also responsible for making them unnaturally aggressive and the target of legal/illegal culling.
Just a hunch… in all likelihood the shark tagging site or location is related to where the sharks are easily accessible to tag X the coastal community FUNDiNG the research which has the goal of monitoring or estimating shark numbers relative to people. Basically, they’re tagging sharks in and around where people are using the ocean. So, it’s hard to say tagging == pissed off shark == chomp chomp. Although anyone or any animal would be pissed off getting a harpoon jammed in them. Having said that, the question Fred poses may be quantifiable by examining the probability of getting chomped around tagging locations vs other non-tagging sites — or some analysis of that nature. Anyway, Fred needs to dig deeper…….
Or as Horatio Algae explains well and with less words.
When I go to a hospital I notice a marked increase in rates of illness – oh my god, doctors must be making people ill! Fred Pawle logic.
Berkson’s bias init
Derek, please stop re-printing Fred’s insane, sensationalist shark theories. Why are you so chummy with this cynical dickhead? Do these articles sell more carbon wrap Lost surfboards?
What’s cynical about pointing out a few facts?
“One common factor in six of the attacks is that they occurred within or adjacent the ocean”
Pulitzer prize winning scribbling Fred
A misquote? Is that all you’ve got? Pathetic. No wonder you’re anonymous.
FFS , Fred , thinking like a human , us humans get attacked so we seek revenge , there fore sharks would do the same???
Reunion Island, the fished all the reef sharks out , fucked the eco balance more Tigers and bulls now.
ballina , still got that big whale buried on the beach , you know the one that washed up 1 week before Tadashi was attacked , with whites /bull/tigers munching on the carcass , and buried it on the beach , takes at least 5 years for the whale to decompose. Plus another 11 whales buried on the NSW coast in the last 5 years.
California, there’s been more rain this winter than in 25 years flushing out all the nutrients into the ocean , its alive hear at the moment , bait balls seal …..and sharks ….oh and the lady attacked here was next to a SUP , where a seal came up on his board being chased by a white , and she was in a wetsuit swimming a couple of yards near by…..ah mistaken identity??
Which brings us too , how many people actually get eaten ,?? we are like bad sashimi , that’s been left in the sun taste it and spit it out, sharks bite realize , that’s not what I eat and spit humans back out, we are not on the menu , accidents!
At what point did I say “sharks would do the same?”
Fuck facts I got theories and a megaphone.
What theory?
That tagging is creating a generation of unamused Great Whites, which is partial reason for causing them to attack.
Did I say that? Where?
If you take umbrage at being misrepresented than I think you best read the above article and have words with Mr Rielly, sir. Fred, I wish you would stop being so aggressive on the matter. I’d probably get pigeon-holed as a typical lefty wanker, fine, but please note I’m not against the killing of sharks. I am against the indiscriminate killing of sharks under a simple assumption that this will reduce attacks. I think a lot of surfers accept similar ends to what you suggest, it’s the means to getting there where disagreement arises. Maybe if you took a more collaborative and proactive role you could be the figurehead of a movement to do something beneficial for surfers, sealife and marine sustainability.
Wincy, you’re right – Derek caused all the confusion here by dismally misrepresenting what I wrote. I should have just told him to take the story down, but I mistakenly assumed that BG’s famously funny regulars would see it in the ironic tone that usually prevails on this site. Sadly, I was wrong. I object to being called aggressive, though. I had plenty of reason to be, but was mostly pretty polite.