Horror: Quaint Australian hamlet known for wonderfully clear water revealed to be “Great White Shark Superhighway!”

Traffic jams etc.

You don’t think of me as Australian but I am, or at least am in our modern self-identity era. I self-identified as Australian when I was five-years-old living in Papua New Guinea with many Australian friends. They talked better than me.

Cooler.

Ate Vegemite on toast, a substance I assumed to be chocolate.

Thus, I was Australian too.

I lived in that Lucky Country some ten years ago and took a trip to a gorgeously quaint hamlet doubly named Forster-Tuncurry, once, with then notable professional surfer Craig Anderson.

Forster obviously pronounced Foster.

The water, he told me, was famously clear and boy was it.

So clear.

We surfed with a gangster who had gold teeth. A longer-than-necessary story and I wouldn’t bother with it you now except to say that Forster-Tuncurry is apparently a Great White Shark superhighway.

A brand-new research report assessing “white shark behaviour (sp) along coastal beaches for conversation-focused shark mitigation” used a drone and revealed something very disturbing/titillating.

And you guessed it.

Shark tracks.

Great White tracks.

The report, funded by NSW DPI and associated NSW Shark Management Strategy, Southern Cross University and the Paddy Pallin Foundation in partnership with the Royal Zoological Society of NSW, found 108 sharks tracked, just swimming there looking for snacks and revealed…

…Water clarity did not influence swim behavior according to track metrics in our study

Time of day influenced white shark behavior in terms of average swim speed, track straightness and net velocity. Notably, the slightly faster swim speeds and higher net velocities, as well as potentially slightly straighter tracks, in morning and afternoon periods.

White sharks found near the surf zone in this study were juvenile to sub-adult size classes

Whilst some of the behavior observed might support the exploratory bite hypothesis, there is likely an increased risk of a shark bite to bathers during situations where there are large shark-attracting food sources present.

But those red lines?

Can those, scientifically, be assumed to be trails of blood from panicked surfers attempting to reach shore after having feet chomped right off?

Likely?

More as the story develops.