1-30 June 2020

Operation

During June 2020, 20 SMART drumlines were deployed for 19 days at Ballina-Lennox Head and 15 SMART drumlines for 21 days at Evans Head. Environmental conditions determined how long SMART drumlines were deployed on any given day, ranging from 5:23h to 10:23h. On average, SMART drumlines were deployed daily for 8:24h at Ballina-Lennox Head and 8:01h at Evans Head.

Catch

During June 2020, nine target sharks were caught (Table 1): one Tiger Shark and eight White Sharks.  Two non-target animals were caught, including a Loggerhead Turtle that was foul hooked on the flipper and a Greynurse Shark (Table 1).  All animals were released alive.

Comments

When the contractors responded to eleven alerts that had no catch, they found that five hooks had no bait remaining, three hooks had either 20%, 40% or 60%, and three hooks had 100% of the bait remaining.

One SMART drumline failed to set off an alert at Main Beach, Evans Head, on 15 June 2020. The contractor found the Loggerhead Turtle when they arrived at the drumline for retrieval at the end of the day. It was foul hooked on the flipper and released immediately (Table 1).

All other animals triggered an alert to the DPI contractors who responded and were at the SMART drumline within an average of 15 minutes.