Shark Attack 2: Revenge of the Tabloid Headline Writer

Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, constant offenders on the ‘savage man-killing shark’ front

When I was Sydney last October, preparing for the IUCN World Parks Congress with the French marine protected areas agency, this headline above was splashed in similar formats across several Australian newspapers.

Shark scientists were kept very busy responding to misinformation, stupidity and downright dangerous reporting in the Australian spring and summer – and this headline (and the strapline above it about the ‘4.5m monster’ shark) summed up the challenge they and shark conservationists face. It was absurd for the writer and editor to let this go through:

• the surfer’s arms were not ‘ripped off’, the writers make it clear in the introduction that he lost parts of both arms
• a 4.5m shark (if that was even the correct size) is not a monster in size. If it had been a validated sighting of a 6m white shark, I would have been more impressed.

My most popular article from this irregularly-updated blog is another shark attack post that made exactly the same criticisms I can make two years later. I image the people googling that phrase came across the post, saw it was attaching the whole tabloid concept of ‘shark attacks’ and left to find juicy photos of actual shark encounters.

Because that’s what these incidents are: encounters. The increased populations around coastal areas in the warmer months, coupled with overfishing of shark prey species, surfers spending longer in the ocean due to thicker and more comfortable wetsuits, climate change and other unpredictable factors, is leading to more encounters with sharks. And if one in 1000 of those encounters ends in a shark bite, we shouldn’t be surprised every time and call for that shark’s head. This only supports the view of shark fishers that they are removing dangerous animals from the ocean, rather than murdering an endangered animal (in the case of some shark species).

Australian Geographic posted a great article about shark research that revealed we are to blame for shark attacks due to the factors mentioned above. And no matter how big a year we have for shark ‘assaults’, it pales in creation to deaths from car crashes, domestic injuries and even bee stings:

So far in 2011, there have been at least 61 recorded attacks and 10 deaths. However, compared to deaths from smoking, road accidents, lightning strikes or even other animal attacks, the risk is minute, say experts.

So please can we stop with the tabloid shark bashing, stick to the boring but correct title of shark encounters and help target the real villains in this debate: fishing trawlers that are destroying the shark-prey food chain and governments who keep approving shark hunting after each encounter in the misguided view that killing that one ‘manhunter’ shark will end the chance of any further shark bites.

From Hardliners TV star to rusting away at a Sydney pier

Since digital television hit Australia a few years ago, the influx of new channels an increase in airtime has not only surprised audiences but broadcasters as well.

Channel 10’s digital offering, with the bland and unhelpful title ONE (since I’ve never seen it linked to an actual channel 1 on any digital TV) showed early promise as a sports broadcaster but switched to mostly reality offerings.

One of the better shows they picked up from cable TV was Hardliners, which featured tuna longline boat captains plying their trade. It was an attempt to show the ‘battle’ between captains for bragging rights but did more in showing how tough it becomes to just break even when chasing endangered or critically endangered species (for those targeting Southern Bluefin Tuna at least). Conservation issues aside, it did feature some colourful characters, as you’d expect on any commercial fishing boat not captained by George Clooney.

While checking out Sydney Fish Market this week (another shadow of its former self), I spotted a tuna longliner docked close to the market. A nearby tackle shop owner told me the ship, Santo Rocco Di Bagnara, was captained by Tony Lagana in the Hardliners series but had now been out of the water (not literally) for about 12 months.

Whether it was commercial licence or storage capacity issues was unclear – the shop owner said the boat had been also used for crabbing and had discovered some new territory with abundant edible crab species but had, in his perspective, been unfairly targeted by NSW Fisheries and forced out of the game.

Many conservationists would be cheering at the loss of a tuna longline boat but the news made me (not so secretly) wish I could spend a day on board one of these boats – to see firsthand the fish they are catching,  the amount and type of bycatch picked up and the sort of people who work commercial boats these days. My guess is they are less George Clooney/Mark Wahlberg types and more like the Hardliner boys, many of whom actually care about sustainable fishing as well as trying to make a buck.

Deck of the Santo Rocco di Bagnara

Satellite trackers on the Santo Rocco

New shellfish reefs to be planted in Victorian bay

Mussel reef in Port Phillip Bay. Credit: Fishingworld.com.au

Dredging and bottom trawling of Port Phillip Bay in Victoria have destroyed most of the natural shellfish reefs in the 230 years since European settlement of Australia.

This new plan reported in the Age newspaper last week will help to restore shellfish reefs in the bay with the aim of increasing habitat for flathead, snapper and other commercially and recreationally valuable fish.

Shellfish reefs will be re-created on the bottom of Port Phillip Bay in a historic project that aims to improve marine habitats in Victoria’s largest bay.

Researchers say that if the reefs can be successfully established as expected, they would provide healthy habitats for shellfish like mussels and oysters. They would also provide habitat, shelter and food options for fish such as snapper, flathead, rockling and many other fish that live in the bay. They would also help improve water quality.

Shells from mussels, scallops and oysters that have been discarded by the seafood industry and restaurants could be sought as part of the project. They would eventually be placed in the bay at one of three locations, in order to form a base for the early stage of the shellfish reefs. Some artificial material could also be used.

But the project requires more than old shells. Millions of baby oysters and mussels, which will be bred at the Victorian Shellfish Hatchery at Queenscliff, will be used to colonise the reefs in the $270,000 pilot project. The baby oysters and mussels will attach themselves to shells at the hatchery, before they are placed in the water on top of the old shells.

The project, to commence this year, is expected to be formally announced on Saturday by Agriculture Minister Peter Walsh, the minister responsible for fisheries. It will be funded jointly, with $120,000 from the state’s Recreational Fishing Initiative, and $150,000 from The Nature Conservancy, an international organisation that undertakes conservation works around the world.

A patchwork of reefs will be restored at three locations, near Geelong, Chelsea and St Kilda, in about eight to 12 metres of water.

Wintry Warrnambool

While I’m missing the summer flat spells and warm weather activities, there’s something special about winter on the Shipwreck Coast. No tourists around, fresh cold southerlies and some calm clear days when the whiting are biting! Here’s a few shots of the local marine sanctuary from last week- some heavy downpours have caused the river to flood but the area still looks petty impressive.

Merri Marine Sanctuary, a local protected area with some serious crays

Over the summer, I helped out on the Marine Summer Ranger program that Parks Victoria run across their land and marine parks. Locally, where in live in Warrnambool on the south west coast, the program involved rockpool rambles in the Merri Marine Sanctuary.
This is an area that, from anecdotal reports, was close to being overfished as the population of the town increased from the 1970s to 90s. One of my Deakin University lecturers shot the video above that shows the health of fish and crustacean stocks in the mainly shallow water protected area.
Sweep, magpie perch, salmon, wrasse and zebra fish can be regularly seen in the park, as well as some of the larger crayfish around this area. Commercial cray boats commonly target the borders of the marine park but it is good to see some larger specimens in this video still hiding under ledges throughout the park.
The New South Wales government is trying to wind back protection of some of the most important marine parks in their state, upsetting conservationists and local people who can see the value of large no-fishing zones. Fishing trawler captains may welcome the reduction of marine parks but as usual it will be a short-term win for them versus the possible longer term goal of allowing fish stocks to recover.

Why sea cucumbers aren’t just another ‘delicacy’ for Asian buffets

Prickly redfish, a type of sea cucumber. This one was near Opal Reef, part of the Great Barrier Reef an hour from Port Douglas.

io9 is generally a scifi website, full of short monologues on the current state of scifi cinema, but occasionally they run very good articles on real science. Like the one below on the issues with sea cucumber harvesting:

Sea cucumbers are in trouble. Everyone knows about the problems that elephants and rhinos face due to poaching, that dolphins face due to drive hunts, and that sharks face when overzealous governments try to convince their constituents that they’re helping them avoid shark attacks. Sea cucumbers may not be as charismatic as their megafaunal counterparts, but they actually provide an important service for reef ecosystems.

They help to keep the sand in reef lagoons and seagrass beds fresh by turning them over, and by feeding on the dead organic matter that’s mixed in with the sand, the nutrients they excrete can re-enter the biological web by algae and coral. Without the sea cucumbers, that sort of nutrient recycling could not occur. It’s also thought that sea cucumbers help to protect reefs from damage due to ocean acidification. Feeding on reef sand appears to increase the alkalinity of the surrounding seawater.

The problem, according to a study conducted by Steven Purcell and Beth Polidoro, is that sea cucumbers are considered a luxury snack. As they explain at The Conversation, dried-out versions of the tropical species retail between $10 and $600 per kilogram in Hong Kong and on mainland China.

There’s actually one species that is sold for $3000 per kilo, dried. Sea cucumbers are thought of as “culinary delicacies,” and often adorn the buffets of festival meals and are served at formal dinners.
There are 377 known species of sea cucumber. Percill and Polidoro’s study shows that the more prized a species is as a delicacy, the more likely the IUCN is to categorize it as vulnerable or threatened – at least for the species they investigated. It’s plain to see that the more expensive the critters are, the more likely they are to be plotted with orange or red dots.

It’s not just a correlation. In most cases, it’s the rarity of a species that drives up the value, leading to exploitation and eventually, extinction. It’s basic supply/demand economics. But the researchers say that for the sea cucumbers they looked at, the causal relationship is reversed. “High-value drives rarity in sea cucumbers, not vice versa,” they write. “None of the naturally rare species are particularly high value.”

Is there anything that can be done to protect these awkward, squishy creatures? “Species-specific bans have been placed on threatened sea cucumbers in a few instances,” the researchers note, “but these regulations do not prevent serial depletion of other species further down the value chain.” Instead, they recommend that a short list of allowable species be created, sort of like Monterey Bay Aquarium’s sustainable seafood card, but for cucumbers. It would exclude threatened species and those most critical for providing ecosystem services to reefs. If sea cucumber fishing can be controlled, the rarer species just might have a fighting chance to survive.

New year, same attack on the sharks

Around this time last year, fishermen were hanging up their prize catches in a big annual fishing competition here in Warrnambool.
One of the fish that brought the biggest crowd was a 110kg mako shark- a common enough catch in Southern Australia but still of concern given the huge global exploitation of various shark species.
The Standard newspaper posted this photo yesterday of an 81.3kg mako from the first 2014 competition and it looks like nothing has changed – same happy crew posing with a trophy shark that may win them more praise than competition prizes. Catch and release should be the protocol for fish such as this: get the photo on the boat, have it signed off by judges and leave the fish in the ocean. The article stated that fishers in the competition had caught “several sizable Mako sharks”.
A local fishing group has been criticised lately for its targeting of unnecessary species for competition points, criticism that was definitely warranted. I attended one of their club meetings recently and a few members were complaining about fishing restrictions that stop them racking up points for certain species. Given that one member caught more than 30 fish in two days, some of which were inedible or destined for the closest rubbish bin, their whinging seemed pointless.
These groups may slowly understand the effect of their ‘overfishing’ when they pull in less the next year or have to hunt harder for elusive species (just like the global commercial industry).

Australian Government Scraps Management Plans For New National System Of Marine Reserves

With the international flak over its shark culling programs and threats to the Great Barrier Reef, Australia should be working hard on other fronts to promote its ocean conservation agenda. Sadly, the Coalition Government is intent on making things worse for those who care about the ocean and instead assisting commercial fisheries with its removal of some marine park protections.

Thanks to MPA News for the article below. To view an updated map of global marine protected areas, visit Protect Planet Ocean.

The new Coalition Government in Australia, elected by national vote in September, has scrapped management plans developed by the prior Labor Government for most of the nation’s representative system of MPAs.  The impacted MPAs are the 33 sites that were designated in 2012 by the Labor Government.  The dropped management plans would have taken effect in July 2014.

The impacted sites increased the national MPA system last year from 27 sites to 60, expanding the system to a total of 3 million km2 (MPA News 14:3 and 14:1).

The sites include the 1-million km2 Coral Sea Marine Reserve, of which roughly half would have been no-take under its now-dropped management plan.

Environment Minister Greg Hunt told MPA News in October that the new reserves were “imposed without fair or adequate consultation” of industry, and would unfairly lock out recreational fishermen from large areas of the ocean (MPA News 15:2).  He said the sites’ management must be reviewed and redeveloped before final management plans are adopted by Parliament.

The management plans for the 33 sites were passed by the Australian House of Representatives – one half of Parliament – earlier this year.  Some conservationists anticipated the Senate – the other half of Parliament – would pass the plans, too, in coming months, thus making the plans law.  But the Coalition Government scrapped the plans on 16 December by having the nation’s Governor-General re-proclaim the reserves, effectively restarting the management plan development process.

However, the Coalition Government stopped short of calling for a review of the sites’ boundaries.  The boundaries will remain as designated under the Labor Government, although for the time being they are simply lines on a map.  Their designation one year ago followed a series of six phases of public consultation conducted by the Labor Government, with strong support from conservation organizations and opposition from several fishing industry groups, including commercial and recreational ones.

A review of the management plans, expected to last about six months, will now begin.  The Government will appoint a scientific panel and several Bioregional Advisory Panels to facilitate and improve consultation with stakeholders.  The make-up of the panels will be announced in early 2014.

Environment Minister Greg Hunt’s statement on the MPA management plans:

http://bit.ly/managementplans

Statement by Australian Recreational Fishing Foundation on scrapping of MPA management plans:

www.recreationalfishing.com.au/index.php/rss/31-coalition-government-delivers-on-marine-park-promise-to-australia-s-5-million-recreational-fishers

Statement by Australian Marine Conservation Society on scrapping of MPA management plans:

www.marineconservation.org.au/news.php/153/uncertain-future-for-worlds-largest-network-of-marine-reserves

Reef sharks and aggressive triggerfish: diving on Fiji’s Coral Coast

I’m still sorting through about 200 short videos from my Fiji trip so put together a clip of some highlights from the first week. I could make a Finding Nemo sequel with all the anemonefish footage (though they weren’t the clownfish variety but still very cute). Yes, not all fish in anemones are clownfish – try telling that to kids who grew up watching Nemo and expect to see talking orange and white-striped fish under every rock 🙂

And the fishing shot at the end is from a morning trip with a local villager, who charged tourists FJ$50 to help catch fish for his village. Well worth the (minor) expense and my first chance to see reef sharks up close, though my videos were mainly blurry.

Seal pup all grown up!

Spotted this seal and his mates a few months ago hanging around the marine sanctuary. It wasn’t long before one of them worked out that begging for fish in front of the pier is an easier way to get snapper carcasses and other tasty leftovers!
Seals in this area don’t have too much to worry about: the larger colony at Lady Julia Percy Island has to contend with a variety of sharks including makos and threshers and the occasional opportunistic orca.