A great white shark was released after being caught on a baited on drumline off the northern beaches
A great white shark has been released from a drumline off a beach in Sydney’s north.
Manly
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A great white shark has been caught on a baited drumline off the northern beaches.
The 1.71m shark was found on the floating hook just off Whale Beach at 4.51pm on Thursday.
It was tagged and released about one kilometre offshore by Fisheries officers from the Department of Primary Industries (DPI).
The great white was caught as part of a three-month trial of baited drumlines designed to help protect swimmers from potentially dangerous sharks.
The latest catch comes two week after a 1.7 metre great white was caught, tagged and released off Dee Why on October 28.
On October 15, a 2.8 metre great white was caught, tagged and released off Palm Beach.
The trial ends on December 1.
A total of 20 buoys are set each day about 500 metres from the shoreline.
Ten of the SMART (Shark Management Alert in Real Time) drumlines, designed to intercept white, bull and tiger sharks, are placed off beaches between Manly and Dee Why.
They are not left out overnight.
Another 10 try to hook the so-called “target species” between Barrenjoey Headland and Newport. The drumlines are set near existing shark nets.
When a shark or marine animal is hooked, Department of Primary Industries (DPI) scientists or contractors are alerted via phone message.
They then place an electronic tag on the shark that allows its movements to be tracked by a network of 21 listening stations along the NSW coast.
After being tagged, the sharks are released 1km offshore.
If a tagged sharks comes close to a listening post swimmers are alerted via the Sharksmart App.
During the first three-month drumline trial on the northern beaches, which ended on May 12 this year, a total of 14 sharks were hooked on the drumlines, but only one was a target species.
On April 11 a 2.5m tiger shark was tagged and released from the drumline off Dee Why Beach at 2.09pm.
One of the non-target sharks caught, a 2.4m smooth hammerhead, died on a drumline off Whale Beach on March 15
All other sharks, including bronze and dusky whalers, were released alive off at Manly, Dee Why, North Curl Curl, Newport and Avalon beaches.
A DPI spokesman said that the drumline trial was not designed to find a replacement for nets, but to assess whether it would be useful in complementing the nets to further reduce the risk to beachgoers.
He said DPI wanted to collect more data on the effectiveness of this technology compared to catches in shark nets.
“Historical data from the Shark Meshing Program (SMP) indicates that white sharks are caught more frequently in the Newcastle-Wollongong region over spring, from September to November, each year than over summer and autumn.
This may partly explain the small number of animals caught in both the SMP and SMART drumline trials earlier this year.”
Critics of the drumlines say they kill harmless sharks and other species such as loggerhead turtles and black marlin.