Shark nets in Ballina explained - video
What price for a quick fix to the shark problem in Ballina? The politician's wish appears entirely unattainable as the attacks continue, each one another front page reminder that doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome is madness.
Yet Madison Stewart, who made the below video, believes dropping ocean nets into the waters off Ballina is another kind of madness. The root desire is understandable, we all want to surf and return to shore safely, but casting nets as a panacea for security is fraught territory. Recently, electronic shark deterrent devices have been criticised for creating a false sense of security and by Madison's thinking the shark nets do exactly the same thing. After all, the nets dont block sharks, they still allow them to swim near shore and around surfers. Madison includes a few facts about drum lines and nets, admittedly yet to be verified, but they're worth heeding if only to grasp whether politicians are going in for their own quick fix.
The bycatch of nets is also worth pondering, but don't get outraged if you live in Sydney or the Goldy lest you look a tad hypocritical.
The main thrust here is that something odd is happening around Ballina, as happened around South-west WA a few years back, and South Oz before that. It's a pattern of behaviour that we don't understand. Yet the only way to understand it is silence the anti-science murmurings and invest heavily in research - an outcome that, if succesful, would help Ballina and any subsequent location where clustering occurs - while taking an immediate, practical approach to mitigation: more surveillance, more patrols, and rebates for deterrents.
Comments
Shark nets - explained? Interesting title - I would argue there were as many subjective comments in that piece as there are coming the other way
The buoys are brightly coloured so the people from shore can see them and get a false security? Interesting take on navigation markers...
Ha ha...so true, they are obviously brightly coloured not so much so they can be seen from shore but so ocean users know there is a net and bouys there.
"The main thrust here is that something odd is happening around Ballina, as happened around South-west WA a few years back, and South Oz before that."
Did WA and SA have juvie/adolescent whites constantly hugging the coast?
Or were they attacks from a few mature Whites?
I thought they were different situations, but I can't remember the ins and outs of WA SA.
Meaning that clusters of incidents have happened before. The specifics may be different: species, times of attack etc., but there was a rise in interactions and then they dropped off again. The explanations for those clusters may correspond.
Exactly my thoughts, lostdoggy.
Perhaps the increase in Juvie species of Whites has caused an imbalance in the hierarchy in the waters, pushing opportunistic feeders out, so to speak.
I have always exercised caution between October (Snapper bans-WHITES) thru April (at start of Salmon season- BRONZIE'S) in WA.
Regardless, stay safe and always share your Ocean experience and knowledge to others.
,
This may not be the right thread.
Have any scientists / locals / Govt looked at what's happening with water quality within the River itself as it exists into the ocean. Is there something happening up river putting 'something' in the water that is currently attracting Whites to that specific area. Cause there is a lot of farm land up there.
A landfill leaching out. Abattoir. Whole bunch of buried animals with their oils leaching into the river.
Maddi if you are going to put pictures of a whale trapped in a net to strenghten your argument, then show the pics of the Japanese fellow in Ballina with both legs taken off fighting for his life, or his parents and family. Or the fellow at Clarkes Beach in Byron who bled out on the beach who was just having a swim. Be fair show these pics too. The reality is weather you are a swimmer or surfer, in the water 2 minutes or 2 hours your are not safe and you are putting your life at risk if its Ballina to Byron while nets are used successfully in QLD and Sydney. Until another method is proven to work then put the nets in and save peoples lives.
Do you drive Canetoad?
Average 201 deaths per year
Not safe in the water?
Average of 2 fatalities per year by shark attack.
How do you know the nets in QLD and Sydney stop sharks? There is not necessarily a link between nets and shark attacks. Ballina has a vibrant marine ecosystem, Southern QLD beaches do not.
Nets demonstrably improve surfer safety by reducing the overpopulation of sharks caused by restrictions on fishing. You can't claim on the one hand that nets impact on marine life, and on the other indicate they give a false sense of security. If nets catch sharks the population is reduced therefore the sense of security that surfers may feel is genuine not false.
The real agenda here is that greenies regard sharks as more important than people, they just won't say it directly.
I think it's more that Greenies regard sharks and the important role they play in the marine ecosystem as more important than people volunteering to have fun in the water and knowingly putting themselves in harm's way.
The hardest thing to say directly is this: none of us need to surf. People live full lives with strong connections to nature and with plenty of adrenaline and fun without stepping foot in the water. It's a luxury, one that I can't imagine my life without, but one that most people in the world don't participate in.
Not sure if I agree on 'none of us need to surf'. We now know the value, effect of surfing for depression, PTSD and more. There was a great piece where Slater went surfing at Pipe with a bloke with depression. You could say a luxury but try saying to all those of the north coast, suck it up, don't go out, or you are on your own with the GWS.
Nail on the head Dan
Plenty of sharks around your neck of the woods Hako. How many attacks?
I bet you still happily surf your little spots like Port Albert Pier without nets.
We have trained seals , they're the dogs of the ocean. They just hang around us and follow us around the line up and if any other wildlife or surfers for that matter they bark letting us know when strangers are near.
The piers an easy one, some of the lads in town that don't surf like to get out on the end of the pier with their 22's and have pot shots at the sharks when we go surfing, they reckon it really adds to the sport using live bait.
You have to think outside the square the square fella's.
Loyal canine of the ocean. My weapon of choice for shark shooting is a sawn off or an AK 47 with the sawn off you just need to wait till the shark breaches and blammo.
The argument that we are entering their territory holds "some" validity...
but that being said...
If land based predators suddenly started attacking people in the city, how would that argument fair?
You could approach it with the same argument, but that isn't doing justice to the differences - most notably that Australia has no land based predators to worry about. In any case, land-based predators do attack people across the world and the situation is almost always caused by humanity's relentless push to turn animal habitat into industrialized space. The real question that should be address is not how do we stop us getting attacked by animals, but how do we stop the human race from, to be blunt, destroying the earth?
I have to agree that we're destroying the planet at an alarming rate.
So what you're saying is that we need to fix all of the other problems that are creating these "shark attack symptoms"?
I agree with you but it seems like the long road to me with very little chance of success. None of the world's real problems will be solved short of an all out revolution or a well curated corporate assassination list :)
Even a poorly curated list will do.
''None of the worlds real problems will be solved short of an all out revolution''.
I believe the type of revolution that needs to happen should be cultivated by using cybernetics.
If a croc takes someone (usually from land but only just - at the water's edge) they hunt it down and promptly kill it.
Yeah but a croc is relatively easy to track. How do you know which shark did the deed? The one in the grey suit?
You been up north mate? You will see infinitely more crocs per square km than you will sharks around Ballina, or anywhere else for that matter. The main point is that they realise when a croc goes rogue, and identify it as a future risk.
Any shark loitering, bumping or munching is good enough to be called rogue. They should see the same fate if we are serious about risk minimisation.
The irony is that nets are seen in a better light than a cull. They should decree a cull for any shark within a few hundred metres from shore (it would likely be caught in the nets anyway). Weed out the problem sharks and maybe the ones who stay wider will live happily ever after. Also basically no by-catch.
Good luck finding the right croc on the East Alligator, Mary or Daly Rivers Stu. In fact, any river or billabong outside of Darwin metro in the NT. Even worse at Cahills Crossing as the incoming tide goes over the road. They stack up like cartoon stepping stones. You tube search will show you how thick they can get.
Recent survey results below.
http://www.ntnews.com.au/news/northern-territory/survey-of-east-alligato...
agree 100%, its a luxury. we live on land, we dont live in the sea, nor do we NEED to enter the oceans - it is a luxury
so, that was an add for the Dorsal app?
regarding her point about there being no fataities at netted beaches due to the fact that they are also patrolled beaches.
If the old addage that attacks happen early morning and late afternoon is true then that statement is false as patrols are not happening at those times
or alternately, that adage is not true
Im undecided but seeing other places have nets and drum lines it's only fair they put out nets and drum lines in place like Ballina where they have had numerous attacks and see if things change.
Agreed. Reckon that's what they have to do, however I'd caution local surfers from thinking this means all troubles are over. There's just too much uncertainty about what's causing the attacks.
After the nets go in, how long until we start sooking about the crowds?
I give it 2 weeks.
Ha,
Bloody stupid comment from Don Munro.
Asks for nets, says industry and tourism is hurting, whinges about tourism.
Agree and that's exactly what Munro (Le Ba) has suggested. Stu, that is what I also have been suggesting elsewhere but you seem to support some academic, Dr Neff - "after ten years looking for the evidence, there is no evidence to support shark nets". Hmmm...ten years. Ok, it's taken him ten years yet the DPI state that nets get about 15% sharks. As Munro said let's get something out there, get some ,confidence back and get some drum line data.
Eh? Wires crossed TB. I support him to say what he thinks is right. I'm similarly dubious that nets are the silver bullet people think they are, yet short of any other solution I think they need to be dropped in.
You want something to focus your anger, take it out on the Liberals who stripped $150 million from CSIRO and $15 million from AIMS and left a research hole that people are now screaming to be filled.
No anger, Stu. And no wires crossed. Sure, anyone has a right to say - that's not the point, really. The fact is the solutions deployed by the 'scientists' were / are inadequate. It was fair that they trialled the barrier nets but what is disappointing here these were not aimed to address the incidents with surfers but bathers only between the flags - that was not really the problem to address. After several incidents and serious ones at that, it turned out there was no really positive action to prevent the bites. Somehow, the fact there are no major serious incidents in areas using nets seemed to be ignored. Finally, the premier had to step in and let's be realistic here, no back flip, just a 'get on with it' as have the surfers of the region also suggested.
To suggest funding for AiMS or CSIRO is a digression and you obviously know why. Funding has nothing to do with implementing something which help prevent these shark issues. Sure, there maybe negatives with nets and of course we need to get more data but let's fix it this now. To suggest shark repellents is clearly a - 'it's not my problem, it yours'. Yes, nets need to be dropped in and that's what has been stated all along
I can't remember where I read it, but the theory wrt nets is not so much to catch everything in the vicinity (an impossibility), but rather stop sharks from setting up a territory.
I agree that bycatch is an issue, perhaps some sort of net with a smaller mesh size and highly visible (black) will stop creatures from coming in too close.
Purely speculating here.
Yeah that's correct Tootr, the nets don't stretch headland to headland, they don't even stretch from the surface to the seafloor. Rather, lengths of net are dropped in at various intervals following the theory that it disrupts territorial patterns. As such, sharks can still swim around, or over, or under, the nets and mingle with surfers.
It appears the nets - or at last the drumlines, no-one is certain - are working in Sydney because when they went in there was a corresponding fall in attacks. However, I think N Coast surfers should remain cautious as there appears something anomalous with the current behaviour of sharks up that way.
I happen to agree with many of the sentiments of this video - Shark nets don't really work, the by-catch is unacceptable, the nets offer more of a perception of safety than TRUE safety, etc, etc. I also agree with the sentiment that possibly saving a few human lives (who were fully aware of the risks they were taking) doesn't necessarily warrant the killing of hundreds or even thousand of animals.
However, the argument has become greater than that. The community here is now not just concerned about the one or two lives lost a year (most of the surfers still happily enter the water daily, knowing the risks) - it has become about the livelihood of tens of thousands of people. If the tourism industry here collapses, that is the true number of human lives that could be destroyed. The issue as it currently stands has the potential to wipe out several towns along this coastline which depend on beach-focused tourism. At this point definitive action needs to be taken to save not just the next young bodyboarder at Ballina, or the the next senior doing his morning ritual swim at Byron, or the next scuba diver at Julian Rocks (because keep in mind this issue goes back a lot further than the past 18 months) , but rather to save tens of thousands of jobs and the families that rely on them.
If that can be done by installing nets that offer even just the perception of safety for visitors, then we need to consider it.
The tourists can be confident that there have been no shark attacks at patrolled beaches. The benefit of patrolled beaches is that the sharks are spotted and the beach closed. The shark is monitored until it leaves the area.
There have been no shark fatalities since 1966 in NSW on the netted beaches, there has been 14 attacks and 2 fatalities in the last 2.5 years in From Evans to Byron. What shits me about the greens they stick a whale in a net and quote bullshit to tug on the heartstrings of the uneducated land dweller? I totally get it, Queensland use a different system then NSW and it would have been good to see you balance your argument, as I believe NSW is the better of two evils.
So Madison, Do you campaign to take the nets down on the 52 Beaches in NSW? Do we just sit back and watch surfers taken one by one.? (My surfing buddies) Do you know any of the victims/families and do you have any children that surf? Do you have a mortgage and work in the surf industry or tourism? Are you a local? At a guess, No for all of the above.
We just want short-term netting as everything we have tried is failing the community. I would love to see the government pour money into sustainable technology that protects marine life and humans. If we develop it we can then remove all nets around the world. Think big.
When you have grown men breaking down after witnessing Tadashi being ripped in half and the other crazy mauling’s, something needs to be done. You greenies have had nearly 3 years and 3 million to have a shot, you have failed. Its not like we haven’t given you a fair crack at the problem. Nets are not 100% but I would suggest you take your argument to the city and convince the Bondi shire they should take down their nets and start a shark-tagging program out the front. Sounds ridiculous doesn't it. Why are we different? By the way I,m a real surfer, guilt wears thin. My 11 year old uses it..
Sounds fair.
On a different note, I was talking to a commercial diver working on bridge footings in the Clarence river. I asked if he was concerned about the bull sharks known to be plentiful in the area. He suggested the tools he was using make plenty of noise which he mused keep the buggers at bay. Not unlike a gas gun being used to protect crops from birds and bats. Not much different to electromagnetic waves but maybe sound waves could work.
To put this in perspective, 212 people died of accidental drowning and submersion in 2006.
Up until January 12, 2009, there have been 717 recorded attacks in Australia, of which 193 have been fatal.On average there have been 1.25 fatalities per year in Australia due to shark attack in the 20 years up until January 2008. For the latest statistics visit the Australian Shark Attack File.Source: The Australian Shark Attack File and ABS
Well said Mr Drinkwater,
The impact on local business has also been significant and is at a stage where is is starting to affect non surfing families.
Having witnessed Tadashi's incident I am happy that nets are going in until a better solution can be put on the table, as no one. needs to see that.I just hope that the nets come soon and that no more attacks occur, especially on a youngster as what chance do they have?
We enter ocean wilderness. That's part of the beauty. To try to tame it is futile. Why, if we do not understand something, must we react by killing or trying to build walls. It is the same logic that causes wars, terrorists and refugees.
Associate Professor Laurie Laurenson from Deakin University's School of Life and Environmental Sciences has analysed 50 years of data and "I can show statistically that there is no relationship between the number of sharks out there and the number of shark attacks," he said.
In W.A. the government stopped their shark cull because it was proved to be of no assistance in saving lives
Dr Peter Macreadie, an Australian Research Council Fellow from Deakin University said
"There's been some 90 per cent loss of the oceans' top predators and so we've learnt this link between sharks and other top predators and the cascading effects they will have down to other animals in those ecosystems that are eating themselves out of house and home.
"They're eating the blue carbon ecosystems that have sequestered so much carbon and this is causing release of ancient carbon as a consequence." ABC News 29/9/16
As a surfers we depend on a functioning ecosystem to do what we love.
Donald Trump has a view on this when he said Mexicans are 'rapists' and 'criminals' and America needs a 'wall' to keep them out. Keep those sharks away from my beach!
Byron-based pro Garrett Parkes summed up how ocean users need to approach the ocean. 'You know the risks, you know the beaches that are prominent for attacks, simple solution: don’t surf North Wall. I haven’t surfed it in years! We have a lot of other coast to choose from.’ , Tracks 29/9/16
Hi Rhodes,
The irony is that we both want the same thing, most people here in Ballina don't want to kill sharks or marine life. Our dilemma is that we rely on our surf breaks to keep our economy buoyant, you know. So people can keep their business going, pay the mortgage etc....The encounters go beyond North wall as the last one was at Sharpes and again 4 weeks prior, so your advice is not sound. You should say don't surf all the beaches. (now that sounds ridiculous and unachievable)
The DPI protected Whites in 1995 and then basically walked away from the study, they have openly admitted they know very little hence the surge in tagging. If your going to protect an Apex predator and continue irresponsible commercial fishing practices, it would suggest an imbalance of marine diversity is more of a probability. I believe its totally irresponsible on the DPI part and they have dropped the ball. The problem is, people are dying or their lives ruined through permanent disability and psychological damage. Not to mention the flow on effects through the family line.
Your Trump reference is bizarre, The guy is out of control and to suggest we think like him is out there.
Nets are not long term nor do they provide 100% safety, However there have been no fatalities since 1966 on the netted beaches in NSW, we obviously have a problem and it needs to be addressed. The greens have had 3 years and 3 million dollars and the situation is worse.
As i suggested to Maddison take your fight to Bondi and get them to take down their nets and begin a shark tagging program on their door step. Ive personally written to Mike Baird, Nial Blair and DPI to do just that several times.
Have you?
Hi Dave
My main point is that there is not a single study that suggests the nets save lives. I want to feel safe in the water too but nets, as far as I can tell do nothing other than kill indiscriminately. I surfed, with my 13 year old south of Broken Head at the same time as the last attack. So grateful it was not us and my heart goes out to any victim.
Governments love short term solutions, particularly violent ones. If they, or we, do not understand something and feel threatened then it is their job to kill it. That's the 'war' 'Trump' link. It's about fear and pretending to make people feel safe when the supposed solution only makes things far worse.
Take WMD and Iraq, a threat (must kill it), fight war (actual killing), destabilised region (ecosystem), something more terrifying (terrorists, refugees, climate change), lots of money spent and not one person any safer, more fear (more emotional short term solutions - Trumps wall and fear of unknown outsiders). And the cycle continues until we exhaust ourselves and finally stop.
"it is a political decision – it's not based on data," said Culum Brown, an associate professor at Macquarie University. "The costs are well known and there's little to nothing in terms of benefits."
Death is confronting and often traumatic: car accidents, assaults, murders, drownings, shark attacks. Take a recent snake bite death in Victoria where the mother filed civil action in the County Court, claiming the sudden death of her only child has left her with severe depression and post traumatic stress disorder. The Age 5/10/16. Should we build walls around bushland, kill as many snakes as we can with a 90% by-catch of other non threatening animals? Sounds futile and crazy. Is there any difference?
The great dictator Mao ZeDong and his Four Pests Campaign. The systematic extermination of sparrows led to an upset of the ecological balance, and enabled crop-eating insects to proliferate. With no sparrows to eat them, locust populations ballooned, swarming the country and compounding the ecological problems already caused by the Great Leap Forward, including widespread deforestation and misuse of poisons and pesticides. Ecological imbalance is credited with exacerbating the Great Chinese Famine, in which at least 20 million people died of starvation.
In theory, if there are two fatal shark attacks per year then we need to kill half the shark population to save one life. Whilst I do not want to be that one life not saved the option of nets will only increase the suffering in other ways.
No deaths have occured from Shark attacks at patrolled beaches. Could it be that observation (increased patrols, tagging, drones) while we seek greater understanding is answer. That would be far better for your local economy.
Stu could you develop this thought a little further:
" Yet the only way to understand it is silence the anti-science murmurings and invest heavily in research..."
Do you mean to say that undertaking the research will silence the murmurings, or are you advocating that views that differ from what the scientists say, should be silenced?
Neither VJ. There's been a strain of derision against the science and the scientists throughout this whole event, stretching way back to the WA attacks. For instance, an article in the Australian questioned how much shark scientists received in govt research money and yet "they still don't know anything." Maybe you could put that down to the anti-intellectual streak that arises in that paper now and again. Certainly there were no protests from those quarters when Tony Aboott stripped funding from a raft of science institutions. The same cohort who lauch an attack on science are also appalled that we don't know more.
Like really, what the fuck do people want? You treat science with derision, strip funding, and then wonder why we don't understand what's happening out there or even know how to deal with it.
The WA govt did a good thing by offering grants to companies working in the shark mitigation sphere. If you'll recall, SAMS (a WA company) got the WSL J'Bay gig, and there are other companies pushing ahead with technologies helped along by grant money (Shark Shield and Eco Sharks Barriers are two off the top of my head).
Mix these direct solutions with increased and ongoing funding for shark research - shit, the Libs are prepared to throw $175 million at a plebiscite that holds no legal weight - and maybe we'll get somewhere.
I sat on my balcony watched a pod of whale swim between the shark bouy and the break at sharpes beach this morning.Right where a shark net would be,who is going to free the whales that get trapped???Surfing small flatrock about a month ago and had bloody big GWS swim past me.Forget the nets, cull the sharks ,the nets will take a hell of a long time to make,get to ballina then installed.In the mean time who gets taken,surfers know the risk,what about a women or a child.If either one of those are attacked,what sort of action do you think will take place.I'm sick of all the bull about the rights of sharks,what about my rights,my grandkids rights.Most surfers I know and spoken to agree we have to cull,we are fed up with the talk.The Ballina mayor,proudly tells the world how many GWS we have tagged,glad I dont own an accomodation buisiness in town.We put down dogs that attack,we cull crocs,no ones talking about the thousands of horses they are going to cull in the Snowy mountain national park. I know the father of one of the kids that helped the kid that was attacked at North Wall,he still has nightmares about the shark following them to shore.GWS are not endangered so we cull them to save,another victim
It could be an article from The Onion.
http://www.goldcoastbulletin.com.au/lifestyle/pets-and-wildlife/kangaroo...
awesome!
Did you really tie this to white rich Australians ?
Seeing as Australia has basically the healthiest fish stocks of any populated country on the planet I'd say you just earned yourself a little sit time in the stupid chair.
If action is to be taken I favour culling over nets only because of the bycatch issue. Its interesting some people get very vocal on this issue but far greater animal welfare issues like those surrounding live animal exports are mostly ignored by the public, politicians and media. I think Peter Singer would call all this speciesism.
As an aside locally there is a massive seal colony and the abalone divers tell us there are plenty of great whites that call it home. Within just a few kms of this seal colony are many surf breaks and to the best of my knowledge there hasn't been a shark attack on a human in that area in my lifetime. It would be interesting to see the science on these attack clusters: something must be changing in those marine environments.
Hi Rhodes,
The irony is that we both want the same thing, most people here in Ballina don't want to kill sharks or marine life. Our dilemma is that we rely on our surf breaks to keep our economy buoyant, you know. So people can keep their business going, pay the mortgage etc....The encounters go beyond North wall as the last one was at Sharpes and again 4 weeks prior, so your advice is not sound. You should say don't surf all the beaches. (now that sounds ridiculous and unachievable)
The DPI protected Whites in 1995 and then basically walked away from the study, they have openly admitted they know very little hence the surge in tagging. If your going to protect an Apex predator and continue irresponsible commercial fishing practices, it would suggest an imbalance of marine diversity is more of a probability. I believe its totally irresponsible on the DPI part and they have dropped the ball. The problem is, people are dying or their lives ruined through permanent disability and psychological damage. Not to mention the flow on effects through the family line.
Your Trump reference is bizarre, The guy is out of control and to suggest we think like him is out there.
Nets are not long term nor do they provide 100% safety, However there have been no fatalities since 1966 on the netted beaches in NSW, we obviously have a problem and it needs to be addressed. The greens have had 3 years and 3 million dollars and the situation is worse.
As i suggested to Maddison take your fight to Bondi and get them to take down their nets and begin a shark tagging program on their door step. Ive personally written to Mike Baird, Nial Blair and DPI to do just that several times.
Have you?
So if the nets are successful in keeping the population of feeding scavenging sharks away from the shore at Ballina or wherever the fuck they are attacking where will they go.
What happens if these sharks no longer hunt there and decide to relocate to Yamba/Iluka or some other area and continue their hunting elsewhere? Are we going to set up nets along the entire east coast?
Yep, more nets. But bear in mind drum lines will be collecting data such as movement, numbers, etc. it would be hoped that more information is gathered so better solutions can be implemented.
Well said lost doggy...the crowds & keepin' the masses happy is what it's all about. Attacks are bad for business & this decision is about dollars, not sense. (http://www.destinationnsw.com.au/news-and-media/media-releases/internati...) (http://www.destinationnsw.com.au/news-and-media/media-releases/ministeri...) ..Sharks have a habit of scaring those tourist dollars away. As far as I'm aware the croc attacks in NT are rarely if ever reported to the European tourists in Europe or evenby the tourism operators when they're here whom then 'refuse to comment' when a tourist dies after ignoring the warning signs of potential & immediate death (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/10/24/1034561554984.html). In the end one of the victims whom got recently attacked says it all with his classic "Don't tell mum" comment...else I'll have to take up soccer eh?? (http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/teenage-surfer-cooper-all...) ..Surfing is like doing your gym work-out in a wildlife reserve, the sharks are always out there, so are the stingers, rays, heck even a whale can be dangerous if you get on the wrong side of it. People need to accept it (the ocean) for what it is and get over this need to instigate full control over something when that is part of the allure of surfing & the level of freedom it brings.
The tagging program has been going for a while now , almost 60 tagged in recent times according to the Dorsal app, would it be too much to ask that someone from the DPI write a short summary on each tagged shark maybe every 6 or 12 months so we get a bit of an idea what each shark has been doing ,travelling distance ,hanging around,returning to the same area yearly?etc etc . All I've seen is a mishmash of coloured lines on a map that are hard to make much of. Maybe I'm missing something thats already out there .
I have a background in marine science and I'm certainly not anti-science but science proceeds on the back of falsifiable hypotheses and so there's lot and lots of errors made before anything like a consensus emerges, or any agreeable understanding.
I'm seeing lots ands lots of so-called science here that is really just pure advocacy, which is fine but completely intellectually dishonest when it wears the mask of scientific objectivity.
Chris Neff has spent his working life trying to change the public perception of shark incidents......you can see this clearly here: http://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13412-013-0107-2
His comments on the efficacy of the netting program are outliers with respect to the current science.
Dr Vic Pedemmors is adamant that nets are effective in reducing risk.
The FAO in it's summation of the shark mitigation in Kwazul-Natal came to the stark conclusion that : "The policy setting progress has been successful in terms of achieving the primary objective of the programme, namely a major reduction in risk of shark attack. The programme has been extremely successful in terms of reducing the frequency of shark attack (see Section 2.8.2). There has been no fatality at a netted beach since the first beach was netted in 1952, and only three serious injuries, the last in 1980."
The science of shark mitigation seems fairly rock solid to me.
It's outlier scientists like Chris Neff and Laurie Laurenson who are playing advocate here and not at least acknowledging reality.
Laurie Laurensons claim that: "I can show statistically that there is no relationship between the number of sharks out there and the number of shark attacks," Is just extraordinarily hard to take seriously.
I can't find the paper, it may be still going through peer review but with no solid evidence of shark numbers what he has is a big fat zero of knowledge to make that claim.
5 times zero is still zero, a million times zero is still zero.
Meanwhile, in the real world, Ballina locals have come to the startling conclusion that white shark attacks are actually caused by, wait for it Laurie, white sharks. And when you see a lot of white sharks, when you are tagging loads of them you get high incident, encounter and attack rates.
Hopefully Laurie, if he is reading this might take back his paper and go do something useful in the field of shark mitigation, like fcuk off to Coober Pedy and serve beers at the local pub where he can tell pissed opal miners : "Oh yeah, you'll never believe these Ballina yokels who had the gall to believe that more white sharks around equalled more white shark attacks......I showed 'em though".
Personally, I don't feel good about nets. I feel deeply conflicted about the use of nets........I hope they are a short term measure and every single thing possible is done to reduce bycatch.
Fact is though something had to be done and it's simply not tenable to have citizens in one part of the state and across a state border protected by shark mitigation measures that are proven to work, while others were not.
Not much science here... just plain stupid cause and effect.
http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/10/14/12/56/huge-great-white-swims-in...
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/10/14/11/54/victorian-angler-shoos...
And we wonder why they seem to be getting more and more inclined to have a nip at us. Notice the portion of fish hanging off the stern in the second vid
Chris Neff is not a scientist. His doctorate is in public policy.
Political 'science' maybe, but that isn't a science
Mabe there should be redneck nets on the beaches to stop people that think they have more rights to be in the waters than sharks ! This will reduce the number of people in the water = less shark attacks.
Maybe every Brown snake, funnel web , red back, white tail, bull ant , wasp , bee, blow fly , mosquito , stinging nettle ,double g and bush tic should reclaim residence in your fucking "home theatre ".
It's not like the seperate room where you recline for hours in a sea of microwave popcorn crumbs , thumb lodged firmly in arse , to binge watch the batchelorette is essential to your survival and a reasonable justification for displacing them from their natural habitat in the first place.
Unless you are currently residing in the barest essential accommodation to ensure your survival , which would be curled up in a naturally occurring cave , in which case then go for it - Point the finger at all those uncaring Earth vandals.
Ok folks, there's a lot of discussion points when it comes to this issue. And I think the majority, even those who now feel no alternative to nets, at heart respect the ocean and it's inhabitants including sharks. But there is a lot of misinformation out there about nets and their effectiveness. As Madison raises in her video, one of the biggest conditions of the Gold Coast or Sydney nets is the proximity to SurfLifeSaving personnel. And it makes a huge difference when it comes to surviving a shark attack to be able to get prompt medical aid, given the obvious traumatic nature of a shark attack. One item that is being pushed hard here in WA (by the community, not the govt), is to have trauma packs at popular surf breaks that have no surf life saving nearby (which is most over here). These would be placed similar to life rings at dangerous fishing spots, so that in the event of an attack people have access to first aid equipment that could very well save a life while waiting for help to arrive. Something so simple should be placed at the beaches in northern NSW, and I know that certainly the Byron council is looking into it. Again something so important, yet no one from govt has mentioned such obvious help. A great example is that no fatalities off Gold Coast beaches (despite many attacks), yet in the nearby canal systems away from immediate help there have been two fatalities from bull sharks. The shark nets didn't stop these bull sharks from entering the canal systems, and of course there were no surf living help immediately after the event.
Another important point to understand is the following. Yes the Gold Coast has nets, but they have a very different environment to Ballina. The Gold Coast (or Qld for that matter) NEVER historically has had a problem with white shark attacks. Yes they have occurred but extremely rarely. The majority of shark attacks in Qld are bull sharks, followed by tigers, then a long way back white sharks. It may only be a small distance separating northern NSW and Qld but as far as white sharks go they may as well be chalk and cheese. The Ballina/Byron region is the most easterly point in Aus, and intercepts the southern whale migration as well as bringing all manner of fish species closest to shore at this point. It's a natural aggregation point not just for sharks but for all marine life. The Gold Coast as Madison mentioned is a veritable marine desert. Long open sandy stretches that don't hold half the biomass found close to shore of the northern NSW coast. And just to the south is Port Stephens which has been known for along time as one of the two main juvenile white shark nurseries, the other being of eastern Victoria.
Finally whether white shark numbers have increased substantially is another massive topic of debate. Yes white sharks have been protected since 1999 (David Drinkwater 1995 was South Africa, the first country to do so). But bear in mind the simple biology of the animal. The best science to date (you know science, that thing we use to prove things) suggest white sharks (females) can take up to 30 years to reach sexual maturity. They then breed only every 2nd or 3rd year, and their gestation period is thought to be around 12-18 months. It IS biologically impossible for their numbers to explode, it just doesn't happen folks. Sure their numbers may have increased slightly since protection but isn't that the whole point of protection?
Rather than just straight following the line of exploding populations, it's well worth looking at environmental conditions. During the WA run of attacks the WA Fisheries dept found the following. That we had an unusually strong Leeuwin current(north to south) that pushed and trapped a relatively colder body of water close to shore. That water was in the preferred temp range of white sharks. So what is believed to have happened, is not that there were more white sharks in the population, but that the white sharks in that area were pushed much closer to shore. Therefore you had more of the sharks close to shore at a time when surfers/divers starting venturing back into the water in bigger numbers (spring). The NSW spate of attacks in 2008/09 also had a similar occurrence. The East Australian current was very strong that year and again it was believed that a cooler band of water was trapped close to shore, along with white sharks and their prey.
Lastly at what point do we as surfers start to accept responsibility for our actions, and our use of the ocean? Sure back in the 70's and 80's shark numbers were historically low and so were attacks. But that wasn't indicative of a healthy ocean. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't want the big schools of salmon/tailor/tuna etc back, or want to see healthy numbers of whale migrating past your town yet demand sharks are culled. Bottom line we have so many other ways to help us keep safe now compared to the past, but yet so many people refuse to use them. There are apps telling when and where sharks are sighted and detected, they also tell you where whales are, where bait balls are. You may have been able to ignore these cues twenty years ago, but no longer should you if your serious about safety. A lot of people say that tourism is suffering, the surf industry is suffering etc but with all due respect (and I mean that) if you still choose to ignore all of these means to help you stay safe then who is really to blame? I've seen it here on the west coast more times than I can count, people getting warned by the surf life saving heli of the presence of a shark, and refusing to get out. If you are warned whether it be by heli while your in the surf, to an app before you go in, that a shark is present and refuse to get out - whose to blame? When you are attacked, and of course it makes the news and your community suffers because of it, again whose to blame. This isn't the 70's or 80's. We all need to accept some responsibility for our actions. And we need to understand that the oceans health is rebounding, and it's a good thing. But it comes with some consequences that we need to deal with, without nets.
With all due respect there is so much misinformation and ignorance in that post it's hard to know where to start.
You don't live here and obviously have very little understanding of this situation other than repeating a few well worn talking points.
I remember seeing two killer whales off Forster in the early 80s. They were spearing vertically out of the water and since then I have never seen them. I wonder how we could see them arriving again and hopefully scare the migration line a little futher away from the coast. Nature just may be the answer and the whites can munch on some dead whales, hopefully out away from the beaches.
@Deanmac Are you saying , harpoon whales and drag them further out to sea for the whites to feed on?
If so this is a win win situation, we could combine the harpoon trips with tourism, drag the whale out on a short line so the punters can get up close on the way out to sea.
You could even take it a step further and have cage diving to watch the whites feeding on the whale and fuck it, go one further and clients can feast on some whale fillets off the bbq while they wait their turn to get in the cage.
It just hit me reading another thread, it wasn't Micks yellow board! It was his legrope!
Find out what colour it was and this will lead you to the solution.
You not thinking that dragging a little plastic fish with an explosive in it, attached by little plastic chain would be safe.
Nets clearly raise plenty of questions, but no doubt something needs to be done. IMO conventional drum lines, should be set within a few hundred meters of the Byron, Ballina and Evans receivers.
Leave any catch there for a week.
If the receivers don't get pinged for a month or two after then a couple of critical questions have been answered.
tootr , can still catch and release the sharks caught in the Ballina area...just import a few already deceased GWS from QLD net catches and hang them 100 mts or so from shoreline
Would that keep the greenies happy ?
Fuck its the simplest scent repell test .
Farrollan Is , Neptune Is Orca vs GWS kill they disappeared for months
Too sensible tootr, it'll never happen
On Ballina and shark nets.
Ballina - I reckon the water temperatures and the salinity/acidity of the ocean has potentially changed species locations. Possibly were having a similar climate change outcome to the northern parts of the pacific west coast USA as detailed in this article below. The sharks, seals and whales moved locations.
Some research has also been done in NSW (page 8 of the linked pdf below) around this change in the increases in ocean-surface temperatures and acidity. " Its states about 45 fish species have changed their distribution in south-eastern Australia in recent years with the change corresponding to warming observed in their local marine
environment".
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/09/warm-water-pacific-co...
http://www.climatechange.environment.nsw.gov.au/~/media/NARCLim/Files/PD...
Second - The Nets.
The only reason the Goldie has less issues with Sharks is due to the amount of nets and drum lines that are in place.
Gold Coast - north
https://www.daf.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/72588/gold-coast-...
Gold Coast - south
https://www.daf.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/62412/gold-coast-...
The national geographic article is well worth a read.
This line from it is very true.
“Is long-term warming somehow the puppeteer controlling things in the background?”
Last year, I posted a list of about ten things to watch for re increased chance of shark attack.... I stated the more boxes you tick on the list, the higher the chance of attack...But people went feral over it.... So I aint doing that again.
Anyway, a happy ending to a bad situation on the goldy today;
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-15/whale-juvenile-humpback-tail-caugh...
How calm were the mother and calf in that vid,great ending....
Real calm, simba....
Btw, on a totally different tangent, pehaps FR may be able to answer this;
How many people fish off the ballina wall these days? heaps back in my day up there... Big mulloway....
With all these fishing shows on tv pushing "product", how many of these fishers are using burley? How much burley are they using? What sort of Burley are they using? Where ocean users and fishermen are using the same recreational patch, should burleying be allowed?
Should ocean users be refreshed re education about tides, moons, baitfish, pissing in wetsuits, rainwater etc etc etc etc?
Lots of little simple steps, you can still walk a mile...
I don't think it's the guys on the wall that's the problem.
It's the guys in the boats dumping the guts on their way back in.
To be honest I reckon there are less people fishing the walls these days. And of those, most are total plonkers.
Never seen anyone burleying off the walls. Current is too strong most of the time, so it would be a total waste.
Stop and think!
The same Govt setting the nets is expanding worlds largest marine parks network.
WH-Great Barrier Reef to WH-Great Sandy to Unesco-Noosa(NSR) to Ramsar World Marine Park-Moreton Bay Islands.This includes(South Straddie) of Gold Coast,offshore reefs under Dep of EHP and (WSR's).
Adding : Gold Coast creeks and river mouths listed as National Park or reserves!
(Factcheck) Seaway has extraordinary amount of fish species(over 400) as does tip of Moreton. Very reason for the protection status.
Never a wasteland...No ones buying that!
Straddie- 3m Great Whites are used as shark bait. We've all seen testament to that!
Queenslander's would be first to support NSW in declaring their majestic coastline a world marine park.
'Great Southern Reef' clockwise from Gold Coast/N.S.W/VIC/S.A./W.A. finishing in Perth.
What protection would it offer and to what species.
Gold Coast High-rise lighting deters endangered turtles from our beaches......
Humpbacksandhighrises whale spotting is priceless in saving whales from nets.
Since 1925 Surfers Paradise penned a pet porpoise...90 years on.....
Seaworld babes and jocks now surfin' their pets in Porpoise pool.
Near all east coast regional cities north and south land lock marine life.
Odd as it seems Seaworld Rescue , traverse stormy seas anytime to remove a hook from tormented shark as far away Ballina even Coffs'.
No eastcoast marine centre provides a harness for smallest of whales.
Marina's hoists,barges,transfers including transport are all of weight for largest of whale but not design.
Shark nets are cruel but to lasso and keel haul a beached whale to sea is equally so.
On the second we could crowd fund a snug (whale/shark) harness surely.
Better still take the lead in field of marine rescue equipment.We have an obligation to manage our marine parks.Interaction is increasing,we should ready ourselves.
Tracey Island marine rescue with T2 is well overdue.
Note: Other nations are well ahead down this path.
Dean bro's should be our last resort!
The sight of an evil robotic arm clawing at a whale will forever haunt us.
Government chair,theme-park fair or bottled up Hi-rise air.
Strange that in our own way,deep down we all care!
Lost doggy.... Death by 1000 cuts...... Say you have 15 or 20 people on the wall fishing....Say 9 are using burley and throwing fish guts to attract a bit of a frenzy 50m away from surfers. It sure aint gonna help, mate.
It may happen, but I have not noticed a single person doing this from the wall.
Btw here's a really cool page for working out when the fish are fully active in Ballina..... Scroll down to "solunar activity" - "best times to fish"..... It wouldn't surprise me if the vast majority of attacks occur within or very close to these periods
http://www.tides4fishing.com/au/new-south-wales/ballina
Yep, been looking at the lunar link for a while now.
Doesn't seem to be in the 'very high activity', but rather coming out of the 'no activity' days, which links what what others, Freeride perhaps?, has posted about the moon phase at the time of each incident.
This explains it better skip to 1 minute.
Doggy, I'll repost it here.
I reckon there are far less people fishing the walls than in the heyday period ....and most of the ones I see are total plonkers with a prawn under a half pound sinker.
Never seen anyone burleying, currents too strong.
I use that tides4fishing site and the solunar tables. I think the jury is out as to how effective it is but there's no doubt a lunar/tidal effect on fish activity.
Udo you have nailed it use the dead sharks from Queensland. I ran your idea past a few friends around here and they thought it was great!
Seashepard have come out and said that if the Nets go in at Ballina/Byron that they could possibly be vandalised. Well if that happens I hope the people responsible are caught and jailed for their criminal acts. Seashepard continue to quote absolute garbage in their attempt to scare the average punter but the trouble is some vulnerable young impressionable people actually believe it. Local councils have no say in this matter and it will be a state government decision. Seashepard and the greens will do everything they can to influence the government but just like the greyhound decision we now know there is hope that people who use the ocean can expect protection just like Queensland, and Sydney. Mike Baird has a duty of care to protect people's lives.
I am sure people can use their efforts in a more important way than messing with a net which is hopefully going to save lives. The Killer Whales are probably going to be our answer here, and these people involved with their preservation will get the backing and support they need. I wonder when the Killer Whales will be seen up here in some numbers, if ever.
Sunny Coast doesn't want to miss out on the media storm.
http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/surfer-reports-shark-attack-at...
"Shark hit me hard from the rear left side, felt it take two or three quick bites before I could even react and thrash it off," the post read.
"Shark was obviously small, couldn't fit jaws around my waist, but still enough to give me the fright of my life."
A bit of a cull wont hurt , will make a lot of flake and chips for payback and when they eventually put the nets up, surely in this day and age we can hang rare earth magnets ( $5 ea. ) plus a few pingers and other very clever cheap stuff off the nets to help the critters see them a bit better. The nets do work well and people are most important and the ocean is a very big place so we should be able to fence off a little bit for ourselves.
Just as a matter of interest, while it's true Vic Hislop is against shark nets, he certainly wants to cull white sharks.
So Madison using him as a verbal ambassador for her cause is a bit dishonest.
Here is the interview in full:
Sharkgirl Madison is entitled to her view but that vimeo clip was complete crap. Sharkman Mark and Vic are at the extreme end of the debate and Madison is at the other, Vic seemed to be a bit of a conspiracy theorist but who can hate him for wanting to protect people.
A real debate between both parties chaired by an unbiased journalist who has done the research would be more transparent than an emotive video clip by Maddie.
How the the hell did Madison get Vic to agree to a on camera interview ?
It seems to me that Madison Stewart is one of the few people in our surfing tribe that understands the science of interconnectedness.
This Ted talk should be mandatory viewing for all the 'Cullwits' and be watched at least ten times so that it might start to sink in.
Radical Times In Reunion - Jeremy Flores - youtube