1-31 October 2018

Operation

During October 2018, 20 SMART drumlines were deployed for 18 days at Ballina-Lennox Head and 15 SMART drumlines for 20 days at Evans Head. Environmental conditions determined how long SMART drumlines were deployed on any given day, ranging from 5:07h to 12:17h. On average, SMART drumlines were deployed daily for 9:10h at Evans Head and 9:32h at Ballina-Lennox Head.

Total catches

During October 2018, eight target sharks were caught (Table 1): one female Tiger Shark from Ballina-Lennox Head, and seven White Sharks (5 female and 2 male) from Ballina-Lennox Head (5 individuals) and Evans Head (2 individuals). The total number of target sharks caught on SMART drumlines since 8 December 2016 is 294 White Sharks, 43 Tiger Sharks and 9 Bull Sharks.

Nine non-target animals were caught (Table 1), including one Smooth Hammerhead Shark, two Dusky Sharks, three Common Blacktip Sharks and three Greynurse Sharks. The total number of non-target animals caught since 8 December 2016 is 145 individuals from 13 species.

All animals were released alive.

Comments

When the contractor responded to seven alerts that had no catch, they found that three hooks had no bait, two hooks had the bait fully intact, and two hooks had 25% of the bait remaining.

All caught animals triggered an alert to the DPI contractors who responded and were at the SMART drumline within an average of 19 minutes.

Table 1: The date and time of capture of species and their sizes (total length in m), sex, and status during the month of October 2018.