1-31 January 2020

Operation

During January 2020, 20 SMART drumlines were deployed for 29 days at Ballina-Lennox Head and 15 SMART drumlines for 25 days at Evans Head. Environmental conditions determined how long SMART drumlines were deployed on any given day, ranging from 5:09h to 12:40h. On average, SMART drumlines were deployed daily for 9:52h at Ballina-Lennox Head and 9:45h at Evans Head.

Catch

During January 2020, four target sharks were caught (Table 1): two White Sharks and two Tiger Sharks (all at Ballina-Lennox). Ten non-target animals were caught, including a Black Marlin, Great Hammerhead, unidentified Whaler, two Dusky Whalers, and five Smooth Hammerheads (Table 1).  All sharks were released alive, except one Smooth Hammerhead.

Comments

When the contractors responded to 16 alerts that had no catch, they found that five hooks had no bait remaining, one hook had 80% bait, and 10 hooks had 100% of the bait remaining.

A Smooth Hammerhead was found dead on a line at Evans Head on 14 January 2020. The contractors were already attending to another shark on an adjacent line and did not reach the Smooth Hammerhead until 51 minutes after the initial alert. The shark was hooked in the mouth.

One SMART drumline failed to set off an alert at Sharpes Beach, Ballina on 24 January 2020. The contractor arrived at the drumline for retrieval at the end of the day and found a Tiger Shark hooked on the line which was tagged and 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 26 minutes.