Anton Covino saw the aftermath of a horror shark attack, now he’s saving lives
He’s the ocean-loving tradie keeping South Aussies safe from sharks, but the man behind the state’s leading shark sighting page has a grim warning if one thing doesn’t change.
SA News
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Anton Covino was only six years old when his family arrived at West Beach moments after 18-year-old Nick Peterson was killed by a five-metre great white.
The former Sacred Heart student was being towed behind a boat on a surfboard just 300 metres off the coast when the shark attacked in front of his horrified friends.
He remembers the overcast conditions and gloomy still water as Nick’s loved ones gathered on the shoreline in 2004, while crews desperately searched for his body.
Now, more than 20 years later, he is hoping to play his part in protecting beachgoers in Adelaide and across the state – but says authorities are thwarting his attempt to provide reliable information about shark sightings to his vast audience on social media.
The 28-year-old labourer founded Shark Watch SA – South Australia’s largest shark reporting site – in 2014, quickly amassing a large social media following, which now sits over 150,000 people.
Since then, his page has become a valuable tool for beachgoers thanks to his network of fishers and surfers who pass on confirmed shark sightings.
“We experienced the raw emotion of Nick’s family and friends grieving,” Mr Covino, of Hope Valley, said.
“It was a very eerie night and the shark was still in the area, those memories will never leave my mind.”
He is now calling on the State Government to allow his page to partner with the SES-run shark plane to provide beachgoers with real-time updates on confirmed sightings.
Currently, trained crews on-board the fixed-wing plane relay shark sightings to SA Police, who then post them intermittently to its X – formerly Twitter – account.
The plane, which operates daily between Rapid Bay and North Haven, extending from Waitpinga Beach to the River Murray Mouth on weekends, will also fly in continuous circles and sound an alarm if it spots a shark.
The sightings are also listed on the Department of Primary Industries and Regions website.
But Mr Covino said the updates were sporadic and hard to come by.
“The reports are very delayed, sometimes it is days or weeks late, or they are lacking a lot of key details,” Mr Covino said.
“If people don’t know a shark has been sighted, they are ignorantly going to the beach not knowing that there is a threat there.
“It’s an absolute certainty that if things continue the way they are, we will see a very, very graphic mauling at one of the local beaches here in Adelaide.”
He said crew members on board the plane had contacted him directly, bypassing procedure, concerned their information wasn’t readily available for the public.
But he says his requests to partner with the shark plane have fallen on deaf ears, with the SES failing to reply to him on several occasions.
“It’s a $400,000-a-year service and they are not really getting the simple things right,” he said.
“Live sightings will save lives.”
An SES spokesman told The Advertiser they would consider Shark Watch SA’s offer in routine post-season review.
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