beaches closed, 61 shark sightings and all reported in the international press, this will kill tourism and discourage water use for sure.

Less crowds=Happy days

How many sups have they attacked?

Bad lucky ..that s a lot of sharks .

we have them but rarely see them .....I must admit ..I don't want to see them .

driving along past trig about 12.30 thursday to see piles of peps stoped and staring at the water. pulled into the dog beach carpark at benion st Metts. got out to have a look and there's a 2m'ish shark(think it looked like a tiger) swimming in the waves and around the back of the break. Havin' a great ol' time for about a good 20 mins that I was there.

No SUP,S up to now Potatoes only one swimmer and one surfer killed in the past few months so far around Perth

61 shark sightings......
Im guessing it is the same 2 or 3 little 2 meterish sharks nearly every time, I have seen (surfed with) them a few times.

How many people need to report the sighting before it is taken as a statistic or beach closed?

I only ask as i have been with lifeguards many a time as people have reported sharks. Had a bloke once say how he had to punch it in the nose as it went to get him as he was leaving tbe water......that was the most extreme one i have witnessed and laughed at.but there are many many more that are just as crazy....

In saying all that.we did have a 10ft bronze go through tbe flags one morning about 2 metres from the sand

Tight lines the two sharks hanging around Northbeach are approx 2.5 to 3 mtr, I have seen one first hand which looked 10 ft between fins, this was the one that made all the newspapers.

The thing that annoys me is the time it has taken for some positive action by the WAFisheries Department, it's taken two months !

Rossall

What is positive action ??

You remove one and another comes in

You cant get rid of the Whites, being a protected species
The authorities are appeasing green groups how do you go backwards ?
I am all for fishing for them however I cant ever see things changing anytime soon

Is the WA fisheries still allowed to kill them ? Or has this been quashed because of the media attention ?

The East Coast has been lucky this year however the baby whales are still coming through atm

The problem lies in overfishing and the sharks are looking for food in a larger area. Up in nsw we have had a no fishing zone between Seal rocks and port stephens for like the last 7 years and the fish are coming back. If you look at the pictures from the 1930's the amount of fish on this coast was mind blowing. Fisherman used to catch an entire boat full of fish just suing casting nets.
To my amazement the sharks are coming back too. Supposedly the strip now has the nickname shark alley. I have surfed here for over 20 years and never seen a shark lat alone a big shark. After taking up suping my third time suping off a quiet beach this largish grey nurse just grooved in and swam past me. IT didnt even break the surface with its fin for around 15 minutes.
I think the sharks have been there, its just the food has gone. I see that fishing is sustainable in a professional capacity but in NSW that can mean as little as 35 percent of previous stocks.
I: am still up in the air wether no fishing promotes shark numbers near beaches or the other way around.

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Rossall said...
Tight lines the two sharks hanging around Northbeach are approx 2.5 to 3 mtr, I have seen one first hand which looked 10 ft between fins, this was the one that made all the newspapers.

The thing that annoys me is the time it has taken for some positive action by the WAFisheries Department, it's taken two months !

They may be different ones but the couple I have seen at Mettams I would have put at only around 2 Mtrs and I didn't consider them a threat.
There seems to be almost daily sightings at Toms, Mettams etc and there is surfers in the water everyday yet to the best of my knowledge there has never been an attack of any kind in that area in recent years.

Not everyone considers the action taken by Fisheries as positive so they are hardly likely to react to every sighting.
BTW I am not a shark lover as such it just that I only feel threatened by the bigger whites.

I was over in Perth last weekend surfing. Very sharky conditions. Overcast and raining. I survived

I got ordered out of the water Thursday arvo by the beach inspector on behalf of the Fisheries Dept.
Put in drumlines as I was leaving the water.
Tightlines is right these have been in the water or wks now, become a normal sight at Metts.
Its the WHITES that put the SH TS up me!

Hope they don't move to Gero next weekend for the Aussie sup titles I'll be making sure I don't fall off.

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chrispy said..
How many people need to report the sighting before it is taken as a statistic or beach closed?

I only ask as i have been with lifeguards many a time as people have reported sharks. Had a bloke once say how he had to punch it in the nose as it went to get him as he was leaving tbe water......that was the most extreme one i have witnessed and laughed at.but there are many many more that are just as crazy....

In saying all that.we did have a 10ft bronze go through tbe flags one morning about 2 metres from the sand

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tightlines said..
61 shark sightings......
Im guessing it is the same 2 or 3 little 2 meterish sharks nearly every time, I have seen (surfed with) them a few times.

Hey Tightlines was this you out on ya SMIK two wks ago at Metts ?
The Shark rocked up after this sesh.

Wife took some shots.

Ha ha yep Fester that would be me, seems there is no hiding these days.

I was demoing a Smik that session, there was one of those little sharks swimming around for quite a while whilst I was out.
At one stage there was someone on the beach yelling out to come in, FFS it was a baby.

P.S. Surf was a bit small and gutless but it was a nice sunny day and the 8'3" Smik Spitfire felt great, shame I found out my old Nissan had a terminal illness around the same time which meant I couldn't afford a new board.

Over in the east we were informed that whites have no interest in drum lines, just tiger, hammer head and bronze whalers are interested in dead bait.
Watching ABC catalyst I was informed that below hawks nest is a great white nursing ground, between hawks nest and nelson bay. Now this is a very remote part of coastal nsw, 4WD only and the area because of the really nasty beaches with hardcore rips have not taken off in tourism. The size of the town is similar in the last 20 years. Its so close to newcastle but really wild, I was shocked as I thought this was grey nurse territory. But on camera they were filming dozens of juvy great whites. Hearing about all the troubles with spotting of great whites around QLD/NSW border. I always thought this was other sharks with people just calling them whites as most people who see a big shark say great white.
How come the fisheries are using bait drum lines? I think a more humane situation can be found, there is a lot of greeny vs fisho fighting with not much in the way of good solutions, why cant they use a physical barrier that can be turned off so the sharks can still feed at night, maybe a shark sonar net between points or a sound detterant, electric field similar to those shark pods and then just turn them off.

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tightlines said...
Ha ha yep Fester that would be me, seems there is no hiding these days.

I was demoing a Smik that session, there was one of those little sharks swimming around for quite a while whilst I was out.
At one stage there was someone on the beach yelling out to come in, FFS it was a baby.

P.S. Surf was a bit small and gutless but it was a nice sunny day and the 8'3" Smik Spitfire felt great, shame I found out my old Nissan had a terminal illness around the same time which meant I couldn't afford a new board.

newatlas.com/wave-park-group-wavegarden-urbnsurf-perth/45118/

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pumpjockey02 said..
Over in the east we were informed that whites have no interest in drum lines, just tiger, hammer head and bronze whalers are interested in dead bait.
Watching ABC catalyst I was informed that below hawks nest is a great white nursing ground, between hawks nest and nelson bay. Now this is a very remote part of coastal nsw, 4WD only and the area because of the really nasty beaches with hardcore rips have not taken off in tourism. The size of the town is similar in the last 20 years. Its so close to newcastle but really wild, I was shocked as I thought this was grey nurse territory. But on camera they were filming dozens of juvy great whites. Hearing about all the troubles with spotting of great whites around QLD/NSW border. I always thought this was other sharks with people just calling them whites as most people who see a big shark say great white.
How come the fisheries are using bait drum lines? I think a more humane situation can be found, there is a lot of greeny vs fisho fighting with not much in the way of good solutions, why cant they use a physical barrier that can be turned off so the sharks can still feed at night, maybe a shark sonar net between points or a sound detterant, electric field similar to those shark pods and then just turn them off.

not true ..jockey...whites will give everything ago ...they even come up in burly ...seen it with my own eyes rock fishing ...
then he or she took my floaty ..never did see that coke bottle again .
they fear nothing and eat everything .

Get on the app dorsal and see how many whites set of the the shark monitors,the tagged sharks set off an alarm which is monitored by the dpi.Up on the sunny Far North Coast of NSW we have shark alarms all the time,water being cleared by the clubbies,police etc.They tried netting the beaches,but our beaches get huge swell and the nets didn't work.They only can tag sharks under 3m,that's all their equipment will allow.There is heaps of debate about why we have a sudden influx of whites,eg climate change,more whales,fishing sanctuarys,over fishing.What the huge concern is that there are bigger whites out there that no one knows about. We have had a couple of "Mick Fanning"type encounters,people being bumped and near misses,we have had 1 death and 3 attacks by whites and one attack by a bull shark.It is destroying our tourism,the surfing industry,one benefit is we have more waves to ourself.Raging debate is do we cull or let them be "it's their territory "theory,but when do protect humans.A savage dog is put down.My theory is we as beach uses only want about 1%of the ocean,the bloody sharks can have the rest.A prominent Gold Coast shark fisherman said 20yrs ago we would regret protecting the white pointer.So the west isn't the only place with shark problems.

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Wife took some shots.

On a bit of a side note, have sup on sup drop ins become so much the norm in Perth that you can post photos up of them and no one seems to notice ?

( hope you got him back tight lines)

sharing is caring ..safety in numbers....or reduces your chances etc.......sharks ..about the only thing i miss about WA...oh well there's always those wakes on the swan river when the ferry goes past.....

dead seal on the rocks at smiths point yesterday [ sun ] in the south west of oz bit like a shark drive thru .

only long boarders aloud to drop in on each other at Metts...
the morning crew are pretty good, weekend tho is a cluster.

i agree that fisheries took too long to step in, been months of regular sightings and not much done about it.
im not saying drum lines is the go, or culling absolutely not. but they should be monitoring closely if regular sighitngs and maybe catch and release...
seems more than coincidence a bronzie at toms and mettams every day for 2 months is a regular 1 or 2. move em on i say before they accidentally grab someones calf n rip it off.

I can relate to the discussion of GW's in your area.

This is our reality now. They are all around us every day.
No attacks yet, but who knows...

A SUP friend went up in the spotter plane and saw 15 different GW in an hour

They study them on Cape Cod
They have tagged and named a whole slew of them...
then they installed "tag detection" buoys near shore, to alert authorities of any Great White activity

Great Whites are celebrities, with everyone tracking their movements.... and they are big. Mary Lee is 3,500 lbs
No plans to do anything.... except study them.

This map shows detections and sightings this Saturday.... 1 was 4 FEET from shore, at a very busy beach

Good swell just arrived.... I'm going surfing at dawn. Glad I'm not a Boogie Boarder

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Youngbreezy said..

Wife took some shots.

By the way Tightlines that's not me dropping in .I was on the left hander (Red Laird)

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supthecreek said..
I can relate to the discussion of GW's in your area.

This is our reality now. They are all around us every day.
No attacks yet, but who knows...

A SUP friend went up in the spotter plane and saw 15 different GW in an hour

They study them on Cape Cod
They have tagged and named a whole slew of them...
then they installed "tag detection" buoys near shore, to alert authorities of any Great White activity

Great Whites are celebrities, with everyone tracking their movements.... and they are big. Mary Lee is 3,500 lbs
No plans to do anything.... except study them.

This map shows detections and sightings this Saturday.... 1 was 4 FEET from shore, at a very busy beach

Good swell just arrived.... I'm going surfing at dawn. Glad I'm not a Boogie Boarder

As you obviously not local ill just explain that 90% of those 61 sightings from WA were actually Bronze whaler sharks, mostly around 2.5m long, most likely drawn to the coast by local fisherman targeting sharks from the same beaches we surf Fisheries should have done something earlier though, they should have banned burley and shark fishing at locally used metro beaches

Tardy that info came over from WA. In the news las last year they reported over here that in WA they dropped 80-100 drum lines and not one white took the bait.
Ron 54 surf numbers around my area are like back in the late 90's with unridden peaks rolling in. Long time locals are shark spooked. Tourism numbers are down so far this year. It looks like those baby whites are cruising up to the north coast for a feed and like the warmer waters. I still think fish numbers are way down and fisheries are doing a bit of a number on the public. Bull sharks are becoming a huge problem around port macquarie and New Haven as well and I don't think they get spotted as big bull sharks. Nambucca seems to be having problems around there and Valla.
Sup the creek I think the biggest whites are off the Northern California coast, or perhaps South Africa they just love chomping on seals. Saw some big boys over there. My old man use to drink with one of the Sydney shark net cleaners and he use to joke how the guy would only ever swim in a bath tub. The guy used to have a picture of the 12 foot fishing boat with what looks like a blow up pontoon next to it, It's not its a 12ft plus female white.
Have seen a bigger picture of one next to an eight foot boat off the cape of good hope looks to be around 14ft from tip to tail.
The shark net cleaner reckons they were just about 1 km off the heads in Sydney and this huge white just surfaced next to them, eyed off the boat and swam around it a few times and then left. Ha Ha.

indosurflife.com/2016/08/wa-surf-contest-called-off-61-shark-sightings/

On the positive side, crowds are down. Had a surprisingly good session this morning with only 3 others.