Greg Pickering says WA Fisheries shark research lacks competency

A TWO-TIME shark attack survivor has questioned the “competency” of WA Fisheries research into white shark numbers saying it fails to consult those who encounter the animals most.

Greg Pickering says WA Fisheries shark research lacks consultation with victims. Picture: News Corp

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A TWO-TIME shark attack survivor has questioned the “competency” of WA Fisheries research into white shark numbers saying it fails to consult those who encounter the animals most.

Greg Pickering said any study of great white shark numbers needed to involve veteran spearfishing and fishing enthusiasts as well as abalone divers and commercial fishermen.

“I’ve got to question their competency,” said Mr Pickering, a veteran of 34 years as an abalone diver and spearfisherman who survived 10 hours of surgery to his face and chest after he was bitten by a great white shark during a dive 180km east of Esperance in 2013.

“People have stopped listening to Fisheries because they keep saying, ‘Our data doesn’t show any increase in numbers’. But maybe it’s the way they collect their data.

“I’ve been attacked by a shark twice, spent half my life in the water, kept records of everything I’ve seen on every dive since 1983 but I’ve never had a call or an email.

“There are a lot of guys with 30 or 40 years in the field with significant information to contribute. They’re in the water every day. You can’t pay for that sort of field work. But (Fisheries) feel they don’t need to talk to us because we don’t have a letter in front of our name saying, ‘Doctor so and so’.”

Greg Pickering a few months after the shark attack. Picture: Channel 7

Mr Pickering, who was also bitten by a 1.5m bronze whaler near Cervantes in 2004, said he and every diver he knew had no doubt white shark numbers were increasing.

“Talk to people who go diving and they just laugh at the suggestion there hasn’t been an increase in white sharks,” he said.

That was echoed by Bluewater Freedivers of WA president Barry Paxman, who fended off a 5m great white with his speargun off Two Rocks in 2014. Mr Paxman said keen freedivers were encountering an average of three or four white sharks a year.

“Thirty years ago you never saw one, but in the last five years I’ve seen quite a number and in the last 2-3 years it’s ramped up even more,” the veteran diver said.

“Freedivers could have a lot of input (to the Fisheries research). The fact is these sharks are apex predators, they’re not being caught anymore, and they are breeding. We will see more attacks.”

His comments come after a four-year investigation of WA’s great white shark population — commissioned in 2012 after a spate of shark attacks — has left Fisheries experts with no idea whether numbers are going up or down.

The report used shark lifespan data and catch records to model the white shark population but the models varied greatly, suggesting anything from a seven per cent a year increase since great whites were protected in 1997 to a 10 per cent overall decline.

Fisheries Department executive director of research Dr Rick Fletcher said spearfishing and fishing enthusiasts were not consulted as part of the research, although he said the reconstructed catch histories of white sharks included in the report were largely based on interviews with commercial fishermen, and their perception of white shark abundance was noted in the report.

Mr Fletcher said since 2007 commercial abalone divers were also required to report observations of white sharks in their logbooks.

Fisheries Minister Joe Francis said factors such as improved fish stock management, marine park proposals and sea lion exclusion zones meant there would be more prey for great whites and it was likely they will become more common.

Originally published as Greg Pickering says WA Fisheries shark research lacks competency