On the 23rd July, surfer Kai McKenzie was attacked by a great white at Port Macquarie. Kai survived the attack though lost his leg. In the wake of the attack, many surfers began mentioning a new site called BiteMetrix that had foreshadowed activity ("the area is hot") in the Port Macquarie region.

Since earlier this year, BiteMetrix have been doing weekly reports of the East Coast. Users can simply sign up and read them for free. However, what appears to be the most appreciated part of the BiteMetrix operation are the social media updates from co-founder Ronnie Vickery. In them, Ronnie shares the evidence that informs his decision-making. Nothing is cloaked as private, everything is presented to the reader, his decisions all made out in the open.

As it happens, BiteMetrix is a long time coming. Ronnie's had plans for many years, though only now are they beginning to solidify into something more concrete.

The final shape isn't yet known, but recently Ronnie shared with Swellnet how he got BiteMetrix to this point and his resolve to make the waters safer.

Swellnet: First of all, you're the founder, or should I say co-founder, of Bitemetrix. Is that correct?
Ronnie Vickery: That's correct, mate, yes.

Who is the other person involved?
My business partner you mean..?

Yeah.
My business partner, Mark.

Your operation began by observing the ocean through surfing and fishing.
Correct.

Are you a surfer yourself..?
Yeah…well I used to be. I surfed a lot through my teen years and into late-twenties, mainly on the Tweed Coast here. I grew up in Murwillumbah, so yeah, I've done a lot of surfing. I started out bodyboarding, catching the bus to the beach, and as soon as I got me licence, mate, we were out into it. That's where I progressed to stand up then. But yeah, mainly Tweed Coast back beaches for me, early on in the day.

OK, but you no longer surf anymore, is that correct, Ronnie?
No, mate. Just fishing these days. I'd always fished since I could walk. Mainly land-based fishing around the coast, off the rocks and the beach, and yeah, that sort of passion grew. As I got older that took over from surfing.

Either one - surfing and fishing - requires a lot of staring at the ocean.
Exactly, yes. I was in it or standing on the edge of it, looking at it, seeing what's going on. It's a great way to learn.

Similar to fire danger reporting, BiteMetrix uses low, medium, and high risk categories that change according to changes within the ocean.

If they're paying attention, surfers and fishermen can build a significant body of knowledge about the ocean. When did your knowledge begin to coalesce into a deeper awareness?
For me, I started warning a few mates - my friends that continued surfing when I got more into fishing. We'd still meet up on the headland and chat about things.

I can't tell you exactly which attack it was, but in 2014 a good friend of mine, we met up on the headland. We weren't supposed to meet up, we just did. I was there to fish and he was there to surf, and anyway, we got yakking and I just told him, "Look, today's a bit hot.”

And he was like, "What do you mean?"

And I said, "Man, just have a think about it because that's what I've been picking up on."

Anyway, he ended up surfing and I went home and he rang me later on that day and said, "Mate, how in the hell did you know that was going to happen today?"

I said, "What are you talking about?"

And he told me there'd been an attack down the coast.

I explained to him, "Righto. What I'm talking about is X, Y, Z the ocean’s variables."

And he said, "Well mate, how do we tell people?"

Back then, I wasn't ready to, or even looking at, creating something from it. It was just knowledge that I had developed as a fisherman and I didn't realise how beneficial it could be to other people. Yet from that point, I got a bit more serious about the study of oceanography and those variables. Built up that knowledge over the last ten years to where I sort of got a little bit more serious about what I'm looking out for.

If you could list them, even just broadly, what are the variables you're looking at?
Well Stu, to be honest mate, everything that I'm happy to divulge is on the site. The factors that heavily contribute to me coming up with these risk factors are all in the story. And what I wanted to do is show people a limited amount of info is still enough for people to understand there is scientific research behind it. To prove what we are coming up with isn’t just the result of a bloke looking blindly at the water.

This is what's going on in the ocean. It's not a bowl of soup where one area is the same as the next, or last week was the same as this week. It always changes.

So everything that goes into me creating these risk levels is spoken about on the website.

Have you had any contact from academics working in the field?
Yes.

How have they responded to the work that you're doing?
Very positively. You can never get enough data. So I've been…not lucky, but I've established relationships with academics so I can get more data because I want more data - I always want more data.

So at the start when I thought, 'You know what, this is just too much to ignore', I went to who I considered the top of the field as far as oceanographic academics are concerned, and said, "Look, am I barking up the right tree here?"

Can you say their name?
I'd prefer not to.

Fair enough.
Yeah, like I said, I considered them the top of the pile, so I went directly to him and he tagged a lot of his colleagues in on it so we had a group discussion. They were all forthcoming with more data. A citizen scientist can only get his hands on so much, so I began filling in the gaps.

So yeah, that's how I moved forward. I did what I had to do to get the data that I needed.

A sample image from a BiteMetrix report, though each one also comes with written explanations.

So moving forward, what's in store for Bitemetrix? I mean it's a lot of work that you do. Are you going to commercialise it or do you have other plans for it?
In the twelve months prior to starting this, not only did I grab a partner, I got hold of a very good videographer slash marketing guru and we started building content. I could have continued building content, but we had to re-prioritise.

I was like, "Okay, we've got this content, that's great."

I have spent the last ten years...and I'm just being dead honest with you here mate, looking at attacks and starting to get a little bit of guilt.

I'm going, 'You know what, I don't want to hold this in anymore.'

So the thought being, ‘Let's start where we are, with what we've got. Let’s get the message out there, and just work forwards. Let's just go ."

And here we are, mate.

Many people are talking about Bitemetrix at the moment. You can't keep doing it for free forever, can you?
Well, no mate. We are looking at a number of options but at this point in time we are funding it ourselves.

Does it involve a user pays system or perhaps money from the government, such as a research grant?
As I mentioned there's a number of avenues we can take this launch. The response that we've got does determine which way we go. I cant tell you exactly which way we're going to go, but yeah, we do have options there on how we can commercialise.

That's great. Now I won't ask any more questions like that, Ronnie. How do you hope that BiteMetrix information is used? Are you hoping that it would change surfer behaviour?
Yes and no.

Yeah, go on…
One of the key outcomes is to reduce the number of attacks. We want to give people the opportunity to have an understanding of the ocean and the predators that are in it.

And like I said earlier, the ocean isn't a soup, it changes. The risk varies depending on the surrounding environment. So I want people to have an understanding of that.

OK. Now what happens if, for instance, you post that there’s a low odds for an attack and yet an attack happens. How might that factor into what you do?
Yeah, mate, that was one of the things that had held me back for so long. Something that everybody needs to have an understanding of, is there is and always will be, an element of random activity that is just untrackable. We're talking about a wild animal.

Like I said, that held me back at the start. I kept asking myself, "Well, what happens..? Am I then responsible?"

Tough questions, right?

But the fact is, if you let that hold you back, well then this information isn't going to help anybody. It has to be put out there regardless. If the information is out there, then how many have I saved prior? You know what I mean?

To be frank, Ronnie, it sounds like this information stresses you out a bit. Would that be a correct assumption?
Yeah.

It’s no surprise considering the weight of the information and the consequences that may arise.
Yeah, but like I said, the consequences are something I've already thought about and come to terms with. I sat with that for a long time and it held me back and I've moved past it. Like I said, I sort of picked the first one [shark attack] in 2014, sat with it for a long time, increased my knowledge further and sat more going, "Well, how can I get this out there? How can I educate people? What should I do?"

And I've been through that. I'm past that now.

Being silent..? I'll tell you what, on the 25th of August last year, when Toby Begg was attacked at Port Macquarie, I wanted to jump up on the rooftop and scream it out aloud.

That day was also hot, was it?
Yeah. I was watching that like a bloody hawk, that particular location, the day before I was watching it. And as soon as I heard about it, I went, "Well, that is it."

I had already had the wheels in motion prior, but that was it for me. I went, "Let's go."

And you resolved to make a good go of Bitemetrix?
Certainly did.

It seems that the Port Macquarie stretch is hot in a similar way that Lennox Ballina may have been hot 10 or so years ago. Do you have any insights into why shark attacks cluster the way that they do?
Well, a lot of research has been done since the 2015 cluster. I've heard a couple of different theories. They've come up with correlations in reports. I don't have my own particular theory about why that cluster occurred. I don't have my own particular theory why certain clusters have occurred.

It absolutely warrants further investigation, and I'm doing that also, but like you said, there is a bit that goes into my workload just to do reports. But yeah, look, Port Macquarie at this time of year, it's hot simply because of seasonality. If you go back between 2020 and now - meaning the incident this week - well there's been 1, 2, 3, 4 incidents between Port Macquarie and Crescent Head. That's not a bloody big stretch of coastline.

So straight up that there are patterns that exist that I've found just by simply looking. Combine that knowledge with acquired knowledge…you can also come up with other contributing factors that might correlate with other incidents around the country, and you progress from there. That’s just what I’ve done.

OK. Now, you mentioned other incidents around the country. You're going to be doing reports for elsewhere soon? Is that correct..?
Correct, Stu. What really became important to me, like I said before, was just getting the message out there first, that this knowledge exists and we’re building on it from there.

What’s happened so far is, we’ve got the information out there to see what the public thinks. Let's see how they respond, how they receive this, and that’ll determine which way we go.

Do you think there may be limitations if, say, you intuitively know the ocean around the Northern Rivers area, but you’re reporting on South Australia or WA? Do you think your acquired knowledge would also apply there?
Sure. Of course, I do have more information at my fingertips regarding New South Wales, but so does everybody else.

I mean, what I understand can certainly be applied nationwide.

Sign up to BiteMetrix here