RealSurf Surfers' Forum

I think the protection of great whites started in 1999.

Well let’s un-protect the cnuts and kill some then

Cranked wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 14, 2018 9:28 am

Phew!

Stop worrying everyone, the number of great whites has fallen by 90% in the last 50 years despite them and their major food sources being protected for a the majority of that time.

Media clickbait?

Everything seems to have fallen by 90% in the last 50 years except population, tech and pollution.

Every wild animal bigger than humans is under threat.

marauding mullet wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 18, 2018 9:00 am

Beanpole wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 15, 2018 8:31 pm

Contrary to a certain well known surf journalist and real surf members disdain Marine studies by the West Australian Government have found a greater risk of Great White attack in Winter and Spring due to cooler water temps which they prefer.

That’s kind of a wishy washy statement.
“Risk” ?
Based on attack stats or the researcher’s opinion?

You already responded to my post a while back Beany, stop picking on me......

No need to get passively aggressive with me, The Mull.

Beanpole wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 15, 2018 2:23 pm

No need to get passively aggressive with me, The Mull.

MM was a marginal presence on here till you decided to have a crack.

My purpose in life is to be a marginal presence on here. And in life in general.

BA wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 15, 2018 4:51 pm

My purpose in life is to be a marginal presence on here. And in life in general.

Is that what you say to your wife in the bedroom?

BA wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 15, 2018 4:51 pm

My purpose in life is to be a marginal presence on here. And in life in general.

As long as you don't do it aggressively, BA.

Cranked wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 14, 2018 9:28 am

Phew!

Stop worrying everyone, the number of great whites has fallen by 90% in the last 50 years despite them and their major food sources being protected for a the majority of that time.

Media clickbait?

Well the study doesn’t say that. It says that the number of great whites caught in the Queensland shark control program has fallen by 92%, from .7 sharks per net per year to .05 sharks per net per year.

This is super specific information. It doesn’t include any data from WA, SA, Vic, nor from NSW — where the average yearly catch of white sharks in the netting program has sat around 6 for many years now, but where in just a couple of years of “smart” drumline tagging in select locations, over 200 white sharks have been tagged and released.

What’s a bet the numbers of tag and release in NSW waters begin to decline pretty soon. Not because the sharks are vanishing, but because they’re no longer taking the bait.

It’s still a v interesting report, https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-018-0233-1

Pretty hard to get good statistics out of the smart drumlines data.
They have been in place for the two years of the study only at Evans and Ballina.
They were only in place at Forster/Coffs (81 tagged) for six months, similarly at the south coast locations.
What is does show is a seasonality to the numbers caught, roughly coinciding with the whale migration, but some still are around over summer.
What is also shows is they’re not rare.

Haha. I have only read the clickbait article somewhere with its extravagant claims by the researcher that shark numbers had collapsed, but it seemed to based only on an extrapolation of Qld shark control data. It was accompanied by a photo that showed a seething mass of sharks caught in a net implying that this was what the queensland shark control nets used to catch！

I thought the real conclusion should be the effectiveness of the shark control program in reducing shark activity in a localised area.

Croissy would excoriate that as MSM fake news, and rightly so.

Here's the Abstract of the report:

Decline of coastal apex shark populations over the past half century
George Roff, Christopher J. Brown, Mark A. Priest & Peter J. Mumby
Communications Biologyvolume 1, Article number: 223 (2018) | Download Citation

Abstract
Overexploitation of large apex marine predators is widespread in the world’s oceans, yet the timing and extent of declines are poorly understood. Here we reconstruct a unique fisheries-independent dataset from a shark control programme spanning 1760 km of the Australian coastline over the past 55 years. We report substantial declines (74–92%) of catch per unit effort of hammerhead (Sphyrnidae), whaler (Carcharhinidae), tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier) and white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias). Following onset of the program in the 1960s, catch rates in new installations in subsequent decades occurred at a substantially lower rate, indicating regional depletion of shark populations over the past half a century

Just checking out Dorsail the shark tag site and the map showed Jews Point as being the first point north of Lennox heading up to Broken Head. Hadn't heard that one before.

As quoted on Swellnet, a spearfisher talking about dealing with sharks. Pretty good.

https://youtu.be/AtyEW2sB2to