Shark deterrent summary

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ChillWinstaaan started the topic in Sunday, 3 Jan 2016 at 4:05pm

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/innovation/shark-repellents-the-answ...

Aside from the sensationalist title an interesting summary of the available products out there.

Good to see some independent (hopefully) research coming out in 2016. Hopefully the methodology/quality stacks up. Perhaps Swellnet could run an analysis on it when they do get published?

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Blowin Tuesday, 13 Jun 2017 at 6:39pm

Is that your stick , Turkey ?

Which coast are you on ...if you care to answer ?

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tubeshooter Tuesday, 13 Jun 2017 at 6:53pm

Camo suits for diving have been around for a while ,not as long as Tezza tho,,Yeah not sure how a shark is going to perceive them on top of a board, . The stripey bright ones are bit newer and meant to represent a more poisonous target rather than blend in. Probably more suited to diving applications. Having said that I don't recall hearing about as many attacks on divers lately,

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Blowin Tuesday, 13 Jun 2017 at 7:10pm

Can't really think of too many situations where a pointer would be exposed to the threat of a sea snake , to be honest.

They hang South and well away from snakes when they're young and by the time they're travelling broadly they're too big to be arsed with eating snakes.

As always , just a flimsy opinion from a provincial hick .

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Coaster Tuesday, 13 Jun 2017 at 8:10pm

Here's another deterrent pattern, similar to TT's - see spray numbers 48 and 49.
http://www.grantmillersurfboards.com.au/home/sprays

tubeshooter's picture
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tubeshooter Wednesday, 14 Jun 2017 at 12:14pm

I believe the stripes alone are meant to confuse them visually , more so than being a threat,, Dr Walter Starck has been using the idea since 1975 , But more recently it has being taken up by others using his research and new technology and information regarding how sharks see the world.
A good link on the subject,,, https://www.ted.com/talks/hamish_jolly_a_shark_deterrent_wetsuit_and_it_...
Walter Starck is ,in my view , one of the smarter blokes in his field , Hes also done a lot of stuff on reefs and fisheries management and research. And he's not afraid to call bullshit out. " The extensive use of computer modelling in fisheries management is poorly founded, unverified , highly uncertain and often grossly misleading.
The management of Australian fisheries is overwhelmingly by office workers with little or no real world experience of the fisheries they oversee. With only a few years classroom training in generalised and largely untested theories about complex and poorly understood natural systems they are charged with authority over multimillion dollar industries. Management of our fisheries has become divorced from the realities of the industry, the real nature of the resource and any factual consideration of its actual condition and dynamics",, from www.aefweb.info/data/Australias%20Unappreciated%20and%20Maligned%20Fishe... .

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Clam Wednesday, 14 Jun 2017 at 12:49pm
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tubeshooter Wednesday, 14 Jun 2017 at 4:20pm

I,m just not sure how well the striped board theory will hold up though., Due to ethical issues , most of the testing on this stripe thing is done on objects like wetsuit covered bait bags ,in underwater environments where refracting light would have an effect. Not sure if its going to have the same potential under a sillhouette in dodgy light conditions. I hope it does though, a couple of permanent markers and problem solved.

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Rabbits68 Tuesday, 4 Jul 2017 at 10:08am

First hand accounts of the GWS attack/rescue of Ben Gerring & what unfolded thereafter.

Very powerful reading & very sobering. Left a lump in my throat & tears in my eyes. Heavy scene alround.....

https://amp.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/the-heroic-battle-to-...

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udo Tuesday, 4 Jul 2017 at 11:09am

Christ thats heavy....choked me up
Those guys that helped in the water fucking legends.

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freeride76 Tuesday, 4 Jul 2017 at 11:47am

unbelievable courage and composure from those guys who got him in and everyone who helped on the beach.

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thermalben Tuesday, 4 Jul 2017 at 11:47am

Incredible story, though very sad.

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Craig Tuesday, 4 Jul 2017 at 11:50am

:(

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goofyfoot Tuesday, 4 Jul 2017 at 12:13pm

That's incredibly sad and traumatic. Horrible

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stunet Tuesday, 4 Jul 2017 at 12:14pm

Those two guys who stayed and helped...shit, no-one would blame them for splitting knowing there's a huge shark in the water, and yet they didn't. Old mate even volunteered his board and hopped into the water himself. Unbelievably selfless actions.

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Craig Tuesday, 4 Jul 2017 at 12:24pm

Heaviest account I've ever read of an attack. An amazing but distrubing story.

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freeride76 Tuesday, 4 Jul 2017 at 12:37pm

It's not my story to tell but I know the guys who helped rescue Matt Lee also showed incredible bravery.

It's a miracle Matt is still with us. I've heard the accounts from some of the responders........

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50young Tuesday, 4 Jul 2017 at 12:47pm

Incredible selfless act, would like to think I would do the same, but can not imagine what you would do in the same situation.

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udo Tuesday, 4 Jul 2017 at 1:36pm

Surf info Y2000, a piece on the late Phil Sharbait Horley and his very lucky encounter at Cactus in the 70s

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simba Tuesday, 4 Jul 2017 at 3:19pm

Wow so fukin heavy and the bravery from those guys that stayed in the water to help was unbelievable and that goes for any attack where people have put there lives on the line to help someone else.....i wonder if i would be that brave ,maybe not but you just dont know how you will react if the moment happens.Sad sad story .... Rip Ben.

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freeride76 Tuesday, 4 Jul 2017 at 6:28pm

Just a note of caution to anyone surfing, or considering surfing in the Lennox-Ballina-Evans region.
Lots of white shark activity in the last 2 weeks.

These are all "freshly" caught and tagged sharks. There are other previously tagged white sharks setting off the listening stations almost daily.

2.52m Male,Joggly Point,Evans Head,28/6/17
2.52m Female,Main Beach,Evans Head,30/6/17
2.42m Male,Airforce Beach,Evans Head,1/7/17
2.70m Male,Airforce Beach,Evans Head,2/7/17
2.77m Female,Angels Beach,Ballina,3/7/17
2.36m Female,Lighthouse Beach,Ballina,3/7/17

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goofyfoot Tuesday, 4 Jul 2017 at 6:39pm

All within 400mm size of each other

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simba Tuesday, 4 Jul 2017 at 7:12pm

So all similar age.........so what i want to know and its gone quiet on the Kent Stannard front but if your tuned in Kent maybe you can answer this ,where are all these baby white sharks coming from.?I thought they were supposed to come from the Wilsons Promontory area and migrate north but none of these have been tagged before so do they tag them down there or even around Stockton beach (nursery)and if they dont why not and if they do how many of these Rare Whites are there now along the east coast.I was trying to keep count of the taggings but now they dont reveal the numbers anymore but i think its around 114 or so since beginning of last year.

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tubeshooter Tuesday, 4 Jul 2017 at 8:12pm

A lot of tagging goes on in Port Stephens as does aerial surveillance .The same sharks are rarely caught twice. The current known northern boundary for these local juvenile/ sub adult sharks appears to stop at Seal Rocks, There are only really two juvenile nursery areas under study on the east coast , and none I believe on the west coast. I think that given the size of the sharks tagged they're at at the end of the juvenile stage , and I,m leaning more towards an increase in numbers of sub adults making their first migratory runs than any actual established nursery on the north coast at this stage, could be wrong, but they definitely prefer southern waters , and given the 'threat' of global warming they're probably not very interested in acquiring real estate in that area.

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simba Tuesday, 4 Jul 2017 at 8:24pm

So if they are tagging in the Port Stephens area and these sharks are making their first run north,where are they coming from ,cause thats a lot of untagged sharks...... from an unknown nursery?

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tubeshooter Tuesday, 4 Jul 2017 at 9:02pm

Theres some speculation of a nursery in the coffs region but there hasn't been sufficient data to correlate this yet. Once White Sharks leave a nursery they are believed to follow inherited migratory paths, these can cover a lot of nautical miles, in a number of directions . In the month of November juvenile white numbers in Port Stephens alone have been estimated at upward of 250. Can't tag em all

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freeride76 Wednesday, 5 Jul 2017 at 7:05am

"and I,m leaning more towards an increase in numbers of sub adults making their first migratory runs than any actual established nursery on the north coast "

I tend to agree Tubeshooter.
Are there any weight/length for age tables for white sharks?

ie how old are these juv/sub-adults we are seeing around here?

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Purplepills Wednesday, 5 Jul 2017 at 12:42pm

Not like other sharks with heaps of pups read a julian pepperal article in bluewater mag years back whites are born 1.2-1.4m i've even heard bigger estimates or claims. (2.5 WTF)

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simba Wednesday, 5 Jul 2017 at 2:53pm

Great white sharks are at around 1.2 m (3.9 ft) when born, and grow about 25 cm (9.8 in) each year.[32]

So if thats correct from wiki they are somewhere between 3 and 6 years old ........Dave Woods who was the pro shark fisherman out of Ballina before they closed it said when he opened up a 15ft female she had 22 pups inside....no one seems to know if they eat each other in the womb or not ..

Clam's picture
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Clam Wednesday, 5 Jul 2017 at 5:33pm

"The heroic battle to save surfer Ben Gerring
July 5, 2017 12:53pm
Billy RulePerthNow"

Incredible story . Billy rule has excelled himself with this story .
Whatever happened to shark attack stories ?
20 years ago you could read about almost every attack in west or south australian waters . Was there too many attacks , an overload , or the reporting was silenced ?
I grew up reading this stuff ,as a paranoid grom thats what surfing was about for me in sw oz , Sneaking out to grab a gew waves without a shark getting ya . Honoring the shark the number one motivator .
The adrenaline rush .
Shark books were favored, especially Hugh Edwards & whoever else wrote those old books .
I cant remember really many over the last 15 years though.
What about all the other victims , where are the details ?
What are the best books and stories about the attacks in the last decade or two ?

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Clam Wednesday, 5 Jul 2017 at 5:57pm

Thanks rabbit68 .
Quote,
"On the Wednesday morning three drum lines were deployed off Gearies, and at 3pm that afternoon a great white shark was caught. For three hours it thrashed against its hook, only to finally lose the battle. It was measured at 4.2 metres and a skin sample was taken before it was dumped out at sea.

Just over 18 months earlier the Fisheries Department caught two great whites on drum lines off Esperance after surfer Sean Pollard had been attacked at that beach by a shark, losing his left arm and right hand. On that occasion the animals were taken back to Perth for research. Yet the great white caught off Gearies wasn’t.

When queried about the inconsistency, the department’s Shark Response Unit spokesperson, Tony Cappelluti said: “Policies in place at the time provided for a number of operational options including disposal at sea. In this case, operations managers concluded that the shark would be disposed of in this manner.”

He also denied that not keeping the dead shark was a lost opportunity to see if it was the same one that attacked Ben Gerring, saying: “The retention of the shark carcass in this case would not have necessarily provided a conclusive answer.”

Three days after Ben was attacked the Fisheries Department put out a press release revealing a white shark was responsible. A year on, no one from Fisheries has asked Ben Long or Glen Keaughran what they saw in the water that afternoon."

https://amp.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/the-heroic-battle-to-...

No stomach autopsy . Might have been interesting ?
There was a chance gerrings leg could have been found , and to know if that was the shark or were there more than one in the area ?
Missed the opportunity .

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Clam Wednesday, 5 Jul 2017 at 6:10pm

That type of story is what every beginner / surfer should read before even beginning surfing certain parts of oz .
Surfing isnt always as perfect as its purported to be .

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zenagain Wednesday, 5 Jul 2017 at 6:14pm

A great read but sobering at the same time.

Must have been heartbreaking for all concerned.

RIP Benny.

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tubeshooter Wednesday, 5 Jul 2017 at 6:37pm

Yeah @Simba, freeride, I,d say these are likely to be around five years old ,. Nurseries seem to have fairly defined boundaries from what we are seeing from tagging and aerial surveillance, and none of the tagged sharks or even smaller sharks visible from the air have been located past those points in their juvenile stage,,doesn't mean it doesn't happen tho,, Some nurseries probably operate on a smaller scale, or are located in way less populated areas than the ones being observed by scientists and fisheries at the moment. To that, It was actually some commercial and recreational fishermen/surfers that brought the Port Stephens nursery to the attention of fisheries and subsequently the scientists ,and not the other way round.

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goofyfoot Wednesday, 5 Jul 2017 at 6:51pm

Clam have you ever seen a white while surfing?

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Clam Wednesday, 5 Jul 2017 at 7:41pm

Not many goofy foot . my stories are fairly average , and have forgotten about certain incidents,not very interesting .
However im usually keen to spot one ( hopefully not multiple ) if im surfing . I'm not envious of others who see them either .
Could say at least 5 incidents with other species of shark.
The Reality is,
unbeknownst to me i may have had many close encounters , theres seals & dolphins regularly so likely sharks tòo .
Its all very mystical .
The old surfers are miraculous just for the fact theyre still surfing 40 plus years along southern australias coasts . Would be a great compilation of stories hey ?

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goofyfoot Wednesday, 5 Jul 2017 at 8:38pm

I often wonder how many times I've been checked out without having any idea it was happening.
Yeah it's quite nuts to think that people have been surfing southern oz for 40+ years and are still alive to tell the tale

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udo Wednesday, 5 Jul 2017 at 8:49pm

One Photography that swims some South Oz breaks ..sorry to say his days are numbered

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goofyfoot Wednesday, 5 Jul 2017 at 9:00pm

Udo his odds must be sky high hey

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udo Wednesday, 5 Jul 2017 at 9:03pm

Takes a fantastic pic...
One of his on Dorsalwatch today....

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Clam Wednesday, 5 Jul 2017 at 10:47pm

Udo , shark would have to get past a jetski . so not as risky as you suggest for the sa photographer nowadays .

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Clam Wednesday, 5 Jul 2017 at 10:50pm

Heres more about the missed opportunity to examine the sharks stomach content etc .
http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/shark-which-attacked-b...

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Purplepills Wednesday, 5 Jul 2017 at 11:55pm

simba...wiki?

the mother gives birth to a litter of two to ten pups, each of which average 1.5 m (5 ft.) in length. Male great whites reach maturity at 9-10 years of age. Females mature even later, between 14 and 16 years of age. animalfactguide.com

Other interesting data from Barry Bruce's research aboard Rolf's boat involves white shark reproduction and how big they actually get. The Neptune Islands sees some of the most smallest and largest of great white sharks, which brings Barry to believe that reproduction must happen near this area. Unknowingly to many, one of the major reasons white sharks are a protected species in Australian waters is because of their poor ability to reproduce their numbers. The females don't start reproducing until they're very big - until they're 5 metres in length and they don't reproduce every year. It's quite possible that they only reproduce 1 in every 3 years. And unlike other ocean species that reproduce very large numbers at a time such as snapper or brim, white sharks only produce up to 10 pups. These pups when born, are 1.5 metres long, hence the necessary large size of the birth mother, and like any new born in wildlife, not all of those will survive. Once born, the perfectly developed little white sharks Great White Shark, Australiagrow at a rapid rate of 30cm per year until they're 3 metres in length. Their growth rate then slows down with males expecting to reach maturity at 7-9 years of age at a length of 3.5 to 4 metres. The females mature later than the males at 12-17 years of age at a larger length of 4.5 to 5 metres.

Not a fan of old barry BTW. How many tagged all up in Aust waters? Anyone got a figure this article has 500 and it is very old data coming back to bite scientists...

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simba Thursday, 6 Jul 2017 at 7:30am

Purplepills well just in case you haven't seen it ..... Dave talks of his experience around the 20 min mark.....personally i dont think they know much at all about breeding age how many pups or how often.....but if what Dave says is right and hes seen it that changes everything and could explain why there are so many young sharks coming thru.
http://www.coastalwatch.com/environment/20580/coastalwatch-shark-discuss...

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Purplepills Thursday, 6 Jul 2017 at 8:09am

yer watched that before both articles say 2-10 pups human anomalies happen where women can have multiple births no doubt big whites could have that many they are like a van. I agree with you simba, but scientist have long time chosen data for example the grey nurse shark when it was protected they didnt use any of the capture statistics from long liner fishermen claiming it is a coastal shark complete boolshit, out of the 500 tags if memory serves me right none were recovered. Not as scarce as claimed but it assisted in getting marine parks and locking fisho's out of areas. They will always say do what gets the next grant.

But all fish have different growth rates some super fast like mahi mahi and slow like the bream. Some excellent research being done on jewfish otoliths where same species different waterway groth rates differ.
Bottom line is we dont know much at all in my opinion blokes gamefishing on a bumper bar found the nursery at Port Stephens. Claims they werent cross oceanic and now they 'discovered' them in hawaii not rocket science - where do the whales migrate.

Getting off topic - anyone got info on the new net drumline roll out heard south coast nsw getting some...been real sharky i hear. RIP Ben ambo timeframe WTF should have landed the chopper! Heros all involved.

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freeride76 Thursday, 6 Jul 2017 at 10:41am

"Some excellent research being done on jewfish otoliths where same species different waterway groth rates differ."

Very true, I've been donating my heads as part of the DPI angler research program......the differences in ages between fish of a similar size is amazing. Some of them in fecund estuary systems like the Clarence can grow very, very quickly.

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Clam Thursday, 6 Jul 2017 at 11:47am

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-25/coroner-finds-surfer-likely-att...

Quote :
"the two, who had been surfing for close to an hour, were sitting on their surfboards when Ryan Soulis noticed what appeared to be a great white on the floor of the ocean so they began paddling for shore.
Mr Soulis told the court the shark surfaced to his right and then headed towards Mr Linden, who knelt on his board and raised his leg to kick at it.
But the shark attacked, taking him in its mouth.
In the meantime, Mr Soulis had been pushed towards shore by a small wave.
Further north, two men who were using a jet ski to tow each other out from shore on their surfboards, saw the attack.
The court was told Matthew Holmes used his jet ski in an attempt to help Ben Linden.
"I was towing my mate on the back of the jet ski and just in front of us saw a guy get attacked by a shark," he told the ABC last year.
"I just took my mate to the shore and went straight out and there was just blood everywhere and a massive, massive white shark circling the body."
Mr Holmes said when he attempted to get close, the shark attacked his jet ski before taking the surfer's body.
"I reached to grab the body and the shark came at me on the jet-ski and tried to knock me off and I did another loop and when I came back to the body the shark took it," he said.
Both Mr Holmes and Mr Soulis then searched on the jet ski for Mr Linden but could find no sign of him.
His body has never been found."

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Gaz1799 Tuesday, 11 Jul 2017 at 9:37am

Interesting comments about the juvenile whites appearing on the east coast without any known nursery nearby.

I have to wonder if maybe these nursery's move around a bit?

There's a break South of Port Lincoln where there's been at least 2 shark attacks in the past 10-15 years however prior to that we always thought the Great Whites left the place alone. Skip forward to present day and we discover there's a White Shark Nursery only 5 km offshore. Shouldn't be surprising I guess as its only 50 km from the Neptune's but still it was new info to a lot of us and surfing there hasn't felt the same since.

Growing up surfing on the west coast of SA I've always found it easier to just assume a Great White swims past me every time I go in and if its meant to be then so be it but these days I don't find as much comfort in that thought as I used to.

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freeride76 Tuesday, 11 Jul 2017 at 9:50am

More caught in the Ballina-Lennox area in the last 48hrs.

Official #SharkReport: NSW - NORTHERN NSW - BALLINA (LIGHTHOUSE BEACH). 13:31, 10 Jul 17, 2.1m, Great White, Tag and Release

Official #SharkReport: NSW - NORTHERN NSW - LENNOX HEAD. 13:30, 10 Jul 17, 2.58m, Great White, Tag and Release

Official #SharkReport: NSW - NORTHERN NSW - SOUTH BALLINA. 13:16, 09 Jul 17, 2.45m, Great White, Tag and Release