1-31 March 2020

Operation

During March 2020, 20 SMART drumlines were deployed for 15 days at Ballina-Lennox Head and 15 SMART drumlines for 11 days at Evans Head. Environmental conditions determined how long SMART drumlines were deployed on any given day, ranging from 5:02h to 12:14h. On average, SMART drumlines were deployed daily for 9:41h at Ballina-Lennox Head and 9:22h at Evans Head.

Catch

During March 2020, twelve target sharks were caught (Table 1): all Tiger Sharks at Ballina-Lennox.  Two non-target animals were caught, including a Leatherback Turtle that was foul hooked on the flipper and a Sandbar Shark (Table 1).  All animals were released alive.

Comments

When the contractors responded to nineteen alerts that had no catch, they found that four hooks had no bait remaining, one hook had 20% bait remaining, one hook 80% bait remaining, and thirteen hooks had 100% of the bait remaining.

All animals triggered an alert to the DPI contractors who responded and were at the SMART drumline within an average of 20 minutes.