1-31 December 2019

Operation

During December 2019, 20 SMART drumlines were deployed for 25 days at Ballina-Lennox Head and 15 SMART drumlines for 28 days at Evans Head. Environmental conditions determined how long SMART drumlines were deployed on any given day, ranging from 5:48h to 12:36h. On average, SMART drumlines were deployed daily for 10:08h at both Ballina-Lennox Head and Evans Head.

Catch

During December 2019, four target sharks were caught (Table 1): 4 Tiger Sharks (3 at Ballina-Lennox and 1 at Evans Head). Four non-target animals were caught, including two Common Blacktip Sharks, a Green Turtle, and a Loggerhead Turtle (Table 1). All animals were released alive.

Comments

When the contractors responded to nine alerts that had no catch, they found three hooks had no bait remaining, one hook had 20%, one hook had 40%, one hook had 60%, and three hooks had 100% of the bait remaining.

Two SMART drumlines failed to set off alerts at Evans Head on 17th and 19th December 2019. The contractor arrived at the drumline for retrieval at the end of the day and found a Loggerhead Turtle and a Green Turtle foul hooked on the flipper - both turtles were released immediately (Table 1).

All other sharks triggered an alert to the DPI contractors who responded and were at the SMART drumline within an average of 30 minutes.