RealSurf Surfers' Forum

Whoah there.....

Good to finally see some rational discussion from an "expert" in the local rag... worth reproducing in full...

http://www.northernstar.com.au/news/sha ... re-replies

Shark net trial will 'use kids as bait': Marine ecologist


THE aim of propaganda has always been control through fear and oversimplification of issues.

It's no surprise then that we're now down to 'it's either kids or sharks'.

Really?

Because the same people didn't seem to have your kids' best interests at heart when they were protesting about the installation of the eco-barrier, which actually would have provided complete protection for your children had they been able to install it.

Thankfully, most parents have been sensible enough to keep their kids out of the water or stick to patrolled areas so no children have been involved in shark incidents.

But that's all about to change if nets are installed, because our resident, self-proclaimed 'experts' promoting nets will have managed to convince you that your kids will be safer - at your kid's peril.

Particularly when we're talking about hanging a hanky in the ocean as 'protection'.

Indeed, lulling people into a false sense of security over this issue is positively irresponsible, as is conducting a 'trial' that will essentially be using your kids as bait to see if nets 'work'.

And why would we need a trial if nets apparently work so well?

When (not if) the first child is bitten following deployment of nets, it will be on the heads of the local 'experts', the media, the politicians and career bureaucrats who have promoted this propaganda and stymied funding of real, evidenced-based solutions, and the councillors who foolishly voted for it.

I hope you'll all be happy then.

Jann Gilbert,

Marine ecologist,

Ballina.

she decries propaganda and emotional knee-jerkism by coming up with the most blatantly emotive and intellectually dishonest piece of propaganda ever.

And people wonder why the general population are losing faith in the scientific experts.

Couple of facts outside the philosophical discussion.


Braithy, the WA drum-line trial was conducted in summer, outside the season when white sharks are in the area and hence they caught nothing. The Ballina smart drum-lines, by contrast, have been in when the sharks are here and they've caught heaps. I think they smart drum-lines alone have caught thirty or forty white sharks in the Ballina region. So, at least as far as catching white sharks go, smart drum-lines are very successful.

According to the latest science age of sexual maturity for white sharks is 12-18 years. Fecundity not really known but probably 2-3pups. Litter possible every 2-3years, possibly more in favourable circumstances.

there's so much contradicting info out there in the cosmos regarding whites, their reproduction and even their numbers.

like that csiro report claiming there was an 800% population spike in white numbers. i was talking to an old friend at the top of the marine biology chain in tassie, and he outright said that report is false.

so go figure, huh?


what's a smart drumline shep and how does it vary from a standard one?

And people wonder why the general population are losing faith in the scientific experts.

it's probably why religion and organised religion has never been so popular in the existence of humanity, than what it is today.

It's a baited hook attached to a bouy, same as a normal drumline with a triggering magnet which, when something takes the bait, sets off an attached widget with a satellite real-time GPS alert.

Contractors then come out and tag and release the animal upon receiving the alert.

As far as what it is supposed to do: catch and release animals alive; it is so far very successful. Updated from DPI: 31 white sharks and 5 bull sharks caught, tagged and released. far as I know, all the whites have been in Evans and Ballina. No bycatch and no accidental death.

Yeah, look, as far as that 800% pop increase is concerned. I would be gobsmacked if that were true, but Vic Pedemmors has alluded to it. We shall see.

steve shearer wrote:It's a baited hook attached to a bouy, same as a normal drumline with a triggering magnet which, when something takes the bait, sets off an attached widget with a satellite real-time GPS alert.

Contractors then come out and tag and release the animal upon receiving the alert.

As far as what it is supposed to do: catch and release animals alive; it is so far very successful. Updated from DPI: 31 white sharks and 5 bull sharks caught, tagged and released. far as I know, all the whites have been in Evans and Ballina. No bycatch and no accidental death.

Yeah, look, as far as that 800% pop increase is concerned. I would be gobsmacked if that were true, but Vic Pedemmors has alluded to it. We shall see.

those drumlines are interesting.

Its got lifestyle show written all over it. Offer a large cash prize for the person or persons who develop the safest way to deter sharks from beaches and people with the least effect on the eco system. Like a scientific block. Go from proto types to testing and trials. Some smart editing to make it look like people are just about to get eaten with maybe the token person eaten or at least bitten and you will have a ratings winner.

Other locations GWS were tagged include Tuncurry, Coffs, Crowdy Head.

Apparently there was a trial of the drumlines in the Bellinger river and a number of bulls were tagged.

Heres some info on Durban (apologies to 'boo, the author doesn't seem to like paragraphs):

"At Durban, from 1943 until the installation of nets in 1952, there were seven fatal attacks. Since the installation of nets there have been no fatalities at Durban and no incidents resulting in serious injury. At KwaZulu-Natal's other protected beaches, from 1940 until most of those beaches were first netted in the 1960s, there were 16 fatal attacks and 11 resulting in serious injury. In the three decades since nets were installed there have been no fatal attacks at those beaches and only four resulting in serious injury. Two of these occurred at Amanzimtoti, in 1974 and 1975, the third at Ballito in 1980 and the most recent at Umtentweni in 1999. It has been argued that the Amanzimtoti incidents represent only a partial failure of shark nets in that parts of the installation were out of order at the time and bathing and surfing had been banned. Such has been their success that a generation of KwaZulu-Natal residents has grown up in an environment virtually free from the risk of shark attack"

See http://www.shark.co.za/Pages/Protection ... sDrumlines

The Durban nets look like they hang from the water surface while the dpi diagram has them starting 4m down until the floor?
What are the current Qld and NSW nets like?
I'd guess you'd get less dolphins in the dpi one.

steve shearer wrote:It's a baited hook attached to a bouy, same as a normal drumline with a triggering magnet which, when something takes the bait, sets off an attached widget with a satellite real-time GPS alert.

Contractors then come out and tag and release the animal upon receiving the alert.

As far as what it is supposed to do: catch and release animals alive; it is so far very successful. Updated from DPI: 31 white sharks and 5 bull sharks caught, tagged and released. far as I know, all the whites have been in Evans and Ballina. No bycatch and no accidental death.

Yeah, look, as far as that 800% pop increase is concerned. I would be gobsmacked if that were true, but Vic Pedemmors has alluded to it. We shall see.

Zero deaths from the drumlines? That's impressive. Who are the contractors and how acurate is there reporting?

Lolz Kunjmeister...

Can imagine the boss "No one talk about the dead ones ok, we got a cushy number and we need to keep this going"

Kunji wrote:Zero deaths from the drumlines? That's impressive.

Impressive ... and rather disappointing.

far as I know the DPI themselves are doing the drumlines. At least they are in the Ballina/Evans region.

but they'll obviously have to get contractors in as the program rolls out.

and I've got no doubt as the program expands there will be bycatch deaths.

The Smart buoys are put out during the day and checked as they go off.
The shark control program ones in Queensland are out most of the time and checked every few days, so most sharks that die have drowned.

Interesting that they spent about 10x as much on those stupid eco-barrier tests as on the buoys, which anyone with a passing interest in surf could have told you wouldn't translate from Perth to NNSW.
Was interested to see the smart buoys come from France.

Looks like NIck Carroll is up to his nuts in it now.....he's pissed off "respected" marine ecologist and all round good guy Danny Bucher.

A RESPECTED marine ecologist has slammed senior surf journalist Nick Carroll's attempt to dispel myths surrounding shark nets in his piece for Coastal Watch, Beyond The Panic, The Facts About Shark nets.

"Unfortunately Mr Carroll's article created more myths than he 'debunked'," Dr Daniel Bucher said in a statement to The Northern Star.

The Southern Cross University lecturer took aim at a number of Mr Carroll's claims, which were published in last Saturday's Weekend Star.

Dr Bucher began with Mr Carroll's claim that shark nets aren't "quite as lethal as it's been made out to be".

He accused the Sydney-based reporter of citing incorrect State Government data in his article, which stated: "last year in NSW, 143 sharks were caught with 96 different types of other animals, and quite a lot were freed."

"For a start, how about quoting the actual figures from the DPI report on last year's shark mesh catch," Dr Bucher said.

"Table 7 of that report clearly says that only 44 individuals of the target species were caught and only three of those were alive in the net.

"In contrast, there were 145 entanglements of non-target species with 116 being dead in the nets - sounds a lot more lethal to me than Mr Carroll makes it out to be."　

Marine ecologist and university lecturer, Dr Daniel Bucher.

Mr Carroll's fourth myth: "Nets aren't just for catching sharks: they disrupt local shark territorial patterns" is also incorrect according to Dr Bucher.

Referring to the State Government's shark tagging program, Dr Bucher said the data reveals large sharks on the east coast are not territorial.

"Bull, Tiger and White sharks are all long-distance travellers. There are no territorial patterns to be interfered with," he said.

While Dr Bucher acknowledged Mr Carroll was correct in saying that the nets will be fitted with devices to help prevent harm and death to marine life.

But he said Mr Carroll's implied myth is that dolphin catches are no longer an issue.

Dr Bucher highlighted that shark nets have killed 10 dolphins and a Minke Whale in the past two years on the Gold Coast, despite the detection technology.

He said since the introduction of dolphin 'pingers' in NSW, the catch rate dropped from 3.3 to 2.0 dolphins per year.

Dr Bucher also moved to bust the myth that nets will block all sharks from entering swimming areas, saying the nets don't even intercept the majority of sharks.

Here, he raised the question of why no one has been killed on a netted beach in more than 50 years.

"The answer lies in the case of the surfer bitten by a white shark at Bondi in 2009, while the beach was netted."

"His left hand was nearly severed and later had to be amputated - a potentially fatal injury. Did the net save him? No, Bondi, like all the other netted beaches, is also a full-time patrolled beach and it was the lifeguards who saved his life."

For Dr Bucher, the biggest myth about the shark debate is that this is a people versus animal argument.

"It's a people and animals debate," he said.

"There are many more effective methods of reducing the risk that do not involve lethal approaches. Use shark shields when surfing, support surf lifesaving clubs and observation programs, swim between the flags, stay out of the water when sharks are spotted and no person or animal needs to die.

"In the end, its a wild environment, not a swimming pool. I'd prefer to keep it that way."

Dr Bucher will present a talk titled "Sharks in my Swimming Pool" for SCU's School of Environment Science and Engineering's Open Doors event at the Lismore campus on November 8.

20 blokes out north wall in onshore 2-3ft this arvo. I'll wait till it's pumping I think.
Have to say most of the people I speak to aren't living in fear though.

I don't think Dr Bucher makes much of an opposing argument.

"In contrast, there were 145 entanglements of non-target species with 116 being dead in the nets - sounds a lot more lethal to me than Mr Carroll makes it out to be."　

There are shark nets from Newcastle to Wollongong and in that 300 plus kms, over a whole year, only 116 non-target animals were killed. That seems a whole lot less than is implied by the more passionate anti-net campaigners.

He quotes one Bondi attack and makes a patently ridiculous conclusion. Actually, the more obvious conclusion would be that the 700m (guess) entrance to Bondi Beach needs more than one 200m net, though isn't it amazing there haven't been more attacks.