Safe spaces for sharks!
Remember the good ol days when the torture of fish via knives and suffocation on jetties was a rite of passage for young boys and the occasional adventurous girl?
And when you could go into a restaurant and sit before a miniature train whose little cabooses presented fish that had been vacuumed from the ocean by super trawlers?
Oh you still can torture little fish?
And you can gorge on tuna and so on as long as it’s not…shark?
The elevation of the shark from fish to deity was confirmed a few days ago when it was announced that volunteers would monitor a drum line trial in Gracetown, Western Australia, where Great Whites have multiplied in such numbers one mental health counsellor now has the added custom of freaked-out mums of kids who insist on surfing, to ensure “the health, wellbeing and mortality risks of sharks.”
From a story in The West Australian on Friday.
The transparency of Gracetown’s fast-approaching smart drum-line trial has been bolstered by an agreement that will see two volunteer observers present when a shark is tagged and relocated.
The revelation came at a public forum tonight where Conservation Council of WA’s Simon Blears announced the move.
Mr Blears, CCWA’s representative on the Ministerial Reference Group, said the Department of Fisheries had agreed to make the system more transparent after ongoing concerns for the health, wellbeing and mortality risks of sharks.
The volunteer observers, one of whose identity was disclosed at the meeting, will require police checks and a thorough induction before being allowed on the contracted vessel.
Donna Martin, one of the volunteers, will watch as sharks caught on drum lines are secured with a rope, tagged and relocated at slow speed 500m further offshore.
Mr Blears said the improvements agreed on by the department were “large success points”, adding that trans-parency was a priority for the CCWA.
“One of the other things we wanted to make sure occurred was transparency of activities on the boats,” he said.
As part of the agreement, cameras and audio devices will be mounted to the upper structure of the vessel used for relocating the tagged sharks.
The footage will be made available to the Ministerial Reference Group. CCWA director Piers Verstegen, Fisheries Minister Dave Kelly’s senior policy advisor Michael McMullan and Director of Fisheries Science and Resource Development’s Daniel Gaughan were also at the meeting.
The trial, which starts this month, will see 10 drum lines put about 500m offshore across an 11.5km area taking in Southpoint, Northpoint and Lefthanders at a cost of $3.84 million.
One volunteer, the former aquarium worker Donna Martin, has threatened to have the trial shut if it kills or harms too many sharks.
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clever buggers those sharks, if they get two doctors to sign off that they’re sick, they can then apply for citizenship and never get caught again………
I think sharks should be healthy whether on the drum line, the xylophone squad, the trumpet strumpets or any other part of a large marching band. Why do drumming sharks get more attention ? Is this an new ELO-WSL-Ashton initiative #anythingforapaycheck
Well we could just leaven this all with a few fucken facts now couldn’t we.
Australians eat a colossal amount of shark every year. I think the catch is around 90,000 tonne pa of which at least half ends up in various forms of fish and chips including fast food versions.
Part of the point of SMART drumline shark capture is shark tagging and tracking. The idea isn’t to kill the shark, the idea is to find out where it’s going. Anyone can find this out btw, the info is updated in real time on various apps etc.
Drumline tagging has a serious repellent effect on white sharks. The program off NSW over the past two and a bit years shows that on average a caught and tagged white shark takes around three months before it contacts one of the listening buoys moored along the coast. Compare this with bull sharks, who take about two weeks before going “beep”. Also, of the 325-odd white sharks so far caught in that program, less than 1% have been recaptures — in other words, once caught, many times shy.
Shark culture wars are like all culture wars, they are fucking stupid and usually detract from doing something about something.
I don’t disagree in general, but the conclusion that “once tagged many times shy” can only be made if you know absolute GWS numbers in the pool [excuse the pun] out of which the 325 caught represent a percentage.
I’m not great at statistics, but I think I’m right here.
Ha well if it were random, and 300 have been caught, and the re-catch was 1%, wouldn’t there be 100 x 300 white sharks, ie 30,000? CSIRO DNA mapping reckons there is anything from about 1500 to 5000-plus of them off the east coast. Here’s another inconvenient fact though, nobody really fucking knows.
I dislike two things about it generally, a) the way in which human fear and prejudice thrives on a lack of knowledge and b) how said fear and prejudice actually resists the gathering of knowledge. It’s like a virus fighting the human immune response.
Agreed, and yes, using that estimate of likely baseline numbers’ does support the theory that tagging scares them off. And yes, ignorance and fear are common bed fellows.
But it also implies that approximately 1 in 10 GWS’s have been tagged [325 tagged of a pool of 1500 – 5000, the median of those figures being 3250]. That seems a surprising [and convenient] amount.
Or have I misunderstood something? Numbers person out there?
I have irrefutable evidence to support the fact that having their face stuffed with a scuba tank and having said tank shot with a .303 will seriously scare the shit out of a white shark.
This is great news , now everyone that whinges about sharks and surfer safety , including local boardriders , surf school operators ,high performance coaches , surfing WA and the WSL should only surf in that localized area i suggest its called “drumies”.
If they do not then they are simply hippocrates or full of shit or possibly both.
My oath they’re hippocrates.
Why does it cost so much fcuking money for 10 drums? $3.84 million seems expensive.
Fuckwits abound and are everywhere.
The drumlines themselves cost a lot of money. They have to be constantly monitored and the contractors need to be on standby all the time, plus they have to get the drums in and out every evening and morning. But $3.84 million is way more than a 10 drum program should cost. They’re probably doing a bunch of other shark mitigation stuff as well that isn’t in the story.
Real Estate in Byron ain’t cheap!
Get yer faux-vegan chakra stimulation drums cheap from some sweatshop village in Bali, then sell’em dearly to trustafarian chucklefucks at the weekend tat-show along with those fucking dream-catchers and tie-dyed fat-camouflage pantaloons.
Quids in mate!
Then you jack in the hippy shite. Start buying rental properties, wearing sharp-toed shiny leather shoes, and drive a BMW in a manner reminiscent of a complete cunt.
Before you know it, you’re running for parliament, citing your former hippy credentials!!!
Fuck you Donna ya dumb old bitch.
Tell ya what, Wiggs. When old Donna sees a beast come alongside and nutting off, bashing the fuck out of the hull she’ll be fucken shitting herself in the wheelhouse and praying.
We need Jehovas Witness shark robots to patrol the coast and make the real sharks uncomfortable enough to go away.
The men in Black Suits v the men in the Grey Suits ?
With those name tags and backpacks.
oh god,……you can’t spell environmentalist without “mental”
The thought of a great white shark lurking around a
particular area and being responsible for more than one fatal attack on human life,
as horrible as it seems, is quite feasible. Great whites do hang around at
times in certain areas. In 1977 I witnessed my friend, Phil Horley, get
attacked by a very large great white shark at Cactus in South Australia.
Fortunately, Phil lived to tell the tale. His board was found next day washed
up on the beach, in three pieces with some big bite marks all over it. A shark
fisherman from Port Lincoln was quickly on the scene with drum lines trying to
catch the shark. A week later, less than 100 meters from where Phil was
attacked, a monster five-meter great white was caught. We know it was the same
shark because the fisherman cut the jaws out. It matched perfectly with the
bite marks on Phil’s surfboard. Forty years later the majority of well-paid research scientists studying great whites seem blind to anecdotal evidence such as this and more, that great white
numbers have dramatically increased, and that rogue killer sharks could be
responsible for multiple attacks. Proper drum lines please in places where there have been multiple attacks and deaths already, not this pretend Smart (dumb) shit that lets em go free.
That is one of sciences’ and governments put downs to the mere mortal.
It’s used all the time to claim the high ground and so give more weight to their claims and the need for a budget and funding.
You know you’re being dissed when whatever you say, no matter how true, is dismissed by genius types as being “anecdotal.”
Even if they accept anecdotal evidence (usually when confronted by overwhelming #s) they will still claim the high ground by using language like, “unscientific accounts of blah blah blah “ to retain control.
Pretty much bullshit when the answer is clear in this case. Parts of Aus need a shark cull.
Yeah Astro. It makes sense to you, me and many others from the ‘silent majority’ of surfers. Croc numbers are trimmed when they get out of control and chomp a few locals and tourists in the Top End. Never any public outcry about that. It doesn’t take long for their numbers to come back either. I think it is clear now we have reached beyond critical mass of great white numbers in terms of what used to be an acceptable risk for surfers and ocean users not so long ago. Research scientists have enjoyed a good run on the great white gravy train. Time politicians started listening more to fishermen and those who are in the sea all their lives.
same goes for bears, lions, rhinos et al.
Yeah Ricmatic, the national emblem of Australia too, and no public outcry about that either. Crazy world.
not rhinos
I think I meant hippos?
I just googled to check on the hippos, and there’s a corruption-ridden hippo culling scandal going on in Zambia at the moment. Makes the shark drum-line debate look very tame in comparison
If a surfer is attacked in Australian Coastal Waters by a Fish which is protected by laws made or ratified by the Australian Government is it not possible then , that the Australian Government takes responsibility for its actions and looks after , medically and financially , he/she who has been attacked by the protected fish ? These waters are not a lawless region as I definitely had my board confiscated by lifesavers ( weekend warrior not the real watermen during the week professionals for which I have the utmost respect ) for infringing the very edge of the surfcraft area and have even seen on another occasion the police turn up at the beach to arrest another perpetrator of the same offense .
I wonder how many times Donna Martin, the former aquarium worker and volunteer has paddled out at North Point, South Point, Cobbles or Lefties? I wonder if Donna Martin, the former aquarium worker and volunteer watches her children walking down the steps at Huzzas frothing for a surf and loving that her kids are developing a love of the ocean, but secretly wonders if this will be “the time”.
100% agree with you Derek regarding the elevation of the shark from fish to deity.
This is a fucked up world we live in where the safety and fun we used to enjoy has been skewed by people who don’t even enter the water. What will happen if one or two fish, i mean sharks die. Will this be cause to shut it down??
Tonight I am going to eat my bag limit of 12 herring and 18 whiting with my family.
I once paddled out at Lefties, not knowing what the spot was called. Later that evening, google told me that it’s one of the sharkiest spots in the world! Not sure I’d have paddled out had I known…
Ignorance is bliss if you don’t get bit . The fact that no one got munched during the 80s, for ten years straight , I never even thought twice about paddling out predawn through deep water to get to an island , surfing muddied brown watered rivermouths and was often the last out of the water long after the sun had set especially in winter after work . 30 years later …….
Good times… priceless. I used to surf well into the night in my late teens. Haven’t done that in a while.
Bliss indeed! The only time I actually turned around and got out of the water was a stormy morning by myself – unfortunately I was reading Jaws the night before! Next surf I rationalised that if I didn’t here the music kick in I was okay!
Put on the bench by Benchley .
Well i guess you are new to the area if you never surfed it prior to the fucken internet
Was traveling in WA
I thought that name rang a bell;
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
It’s a cold blooded predator with no soul–kill it–if it endangers a person with a soul….
That’s a bit harsh on old Wiggs!
Hypothetically , I can’t imagine when a salt water crocodile in the Northern Territory causes/represents a problem ,in an area where humans live / work / play , that they would relocate it only 500m away even though the location finds itself in a region which was / is part of the crocodiles natural habitat ? Please note , I have no desire to see either crocodiles or sharks become extinct but would like to see surfers also become as protected as the protected species .
I know a few humans I wish were relocated. But more than 500 meters
The courts ruled an ex of mine had to stay at least 500m away from me at all times. Wish I’d tagged and released her in hindsight …
Are you annoyed that people are trying to conduct scientific research ethically? Or are you just annoyed that an expensive government funded program is being forced to prove that it does exactly what it claims? Either way this is a weird article that seems to have no real point.
Fancy that, a weird article that has no point, here on Beach Grit.
Get outta town!
Not out of town, just 500m should do it.
What article?
You had me at “Are you annoyed”
the last time they tried drum lines , they didn’t catch a GWS, OK who told the GWS’s about drumlines?
I may or may not have mentioned it at the last GWSAA meeting.
Possibly at a Byron-adjacent GW drum circle.
All sharks who display
Low self esteem will be sent
Straight to Byron Bay
Western society stops eating sharks and starts eating itself.
Word is he’s skipping the Aussie leg cause it’s shit and more chance of 8 comp wins in a row after that.
He’s not the only one missing an Aussie leg…
if that is from jaws, that is my audio visual guy from grammar school, he would bring the movie to my uncles house and show it during the summer.. big event in the early/mid seventies i was the president of the club and got to bring movie projectors from class to class, then we got vcr’s… it got me laid lots i tell ya. having a vcr at my beck and call and keys to the closet.
The contractor is an Abalone diver from the South Coast. He has no relevant experience other than being rounded up by sharks more than most humans on earth. He will be given a 6 week training program on how to really piss sharks off.
I can imagine the abalone diver swimming with the tagged sharks clipboard in one hand bag of abalone in other, trying to get an interview on sharks welfare. It will go well
He will pretty much only be responsible for taggin’ ’em and draggin’ ’em, not any of the research however I could also imagine when the trials done and he’s diving for his shell’s
a sharks disdain when it recognises him.
Ho ho ho – dragging a big shark ho ho ho
The potential for insanity is massive.
And fuck what, dragging a shark 500 metres out off where it was caught and releasing it is bullshit.
What’s that going to achieve ? Fukkall is what.
Not if they get a few foilers out there, chop chop.
Another predatory species that needs a cull.
It’ll be chomp chomp when they hit the water.
Dual purpose use of drum lines.
they should hire that bloke from Pottsville to do the dragging. he did it down the Main Street with a dolphin behind his hilux at 3 am. hasn’t been a dolphin attack since.
good book, called the Devils Teeth about GW’s off San Fran, and there is a crazy abalone diver out there.. fucking nuts.
cool will check it thanks