Taking a look at shark activity as summer gets underway

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Dr Paul Butcher, from NSW government's shark tagging program, says bull sharks will migrate down the east coast throughout summer and will be pupping around rivers and shallower water.

Transcript

00:00with summer upon us the warm weather is seeing many of us head to the beach well let's talk to

00:07dr paul butcher who is the principal research scientist for the new south wales government's

00:12shark tagging and tracking program he joins us now dr butcher thank you for joining us today

00:17generally speaking what do we know of shark movement this time of year uh this time of the

00:23year we have bull sharks traveling down from queensland into new south wales waters we have

00:28tiger sharks here all year round and our white sharks that we've had between may and october

00:33have all gone back down to tasmania and victorian waters and so you're mentioning there the ones

00:39we're most concerned about whites tigers and bull sharks of course um where are they most likely

00:45to be encountered even if that is so rare yeah well white sharks are found along our entire coastline

00:52between may and october november every year bull sharks head back up to queensland waters for

00:58our winter time but at this time of the year they're traveling uh south along our new south wales

01:03uh systems into our rivers to to pop and and they'll continue on migrating down our coastline over the

01:09summer do they prefer the deeper water or not necessarily no they come back to the same rivers

01:14uh every year to to pop the females uh you'll find them off our coastal beaches um right throughout summer

01:21and i guess the biggest thing for us is just staying clear of those conditions where sharks might be

01:26around um early early dawn and dusk um if there's lots of bait fish around and in murky conditions

01:32if we get lots of rain and can you just expand on that dawn or dusk for us why is that yeah well sharks

01:40uh use uh the conditions to hunt and and early in the morning when it's a bit darker the sun's not up

01:46there they're actively feeding so especially for tigers and and and bull sharks white sharks can be found

01:51at any time of the day uh their peak periods of detection on the tag shark listening stations

01:56and also capture on our smart drum lines is between 11 and 1 pm each day and how is that shark tagging

02:03and tracking program going i mean there have been a number of sharks tagged now yeah over the last 10

02:08years we've tagged almost 1600 gray whites uh 760 tiger sharks and around 260 bull sharks so those animals

02:18are actively detected and picked up on the shark smart app so anybody from the public can can follow

02:24these animals as they move up and down our coastline not only seeing where they are now where they were

02:28last detected and also also where they were originally tagged as well what's the uptake of that app been

02:34like really good we've had more than 3 billion push notifications over the last 10 years and and more

02:41than 300 000 users of the shark smart app that that uh that increases a lot over the summer period when

02:48when people are going to the beach and they just want to know what's off their beaches back to that

02:53shark tagging i mean it's a big job what happens when a shark sets off the alert we have 20 contractor

03:00locations along 1300 kilometers of coastline so we get a real-time alert the contractors get out to those

03:07animals within often uh 14 to 16 minutes we give them half an hour but they're really fast to those

03:13animals to minimize any stress our survival rates on our smart drum lines are almost 99 and we catch a

03:20range of sharks if we catch a great white tiger or bull shark it's tagged with an acoustic tag and those

03:25tags then last for 10 years as we uh we we follow those animals as they move up and down the east coast

03:31and um and also further afield we have animals going to new zealand poppa new guinea um other animals

03:37travel great whites traveling to western australia three times uh back more than 40 000 kilometers over

03:42a three-year period and so can we have any estimate as to what percentage of these shark populations have

03:49been tagged uh for bull sharks and tiger sharks where we're looking at those populations now uh for white

03:56sharks the most recent estimates um are between sort of five and a half and seven and a half thousand

04:02animals in that population so we've tagged almost yeah 1600 uh over the last 10 years and as part of

04:09the new survival government shark management program we'll continue to not only tag those animals but we

04:14take a range of biological samples to to keep on assessing those those populations over the following years

04:21finally dr butcher we know that shark nets have been controversial

04:25where is drone surveillance out at this point and would it or anything else be enough to replace those

04:30nets yeah the the whole program is around using a a suite of tools to to minimize the chance of a

04:37shark bite uh drones is right up the top smart drum lines at 305 locations we have 37 tag shark

04:44listening stations and we currently still have nets between wollongong and newcastle as part of a a

04:50suite of different um tools that we use in the program dr paul butcher the principal research

04:56scientist for the new south wales government shark tagging and tracking program coming to us there

05:00from coffs harbour thank you thank you

05:10you

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