1-28 February 2018

Operation

Coffs Harbour and Forster both finished their six month trial on 13 February 2018. During February 2018, SMART drumlines were deployed for 10 days at Coffs Harbour, 13 days at Ballina-Lennox Head and Forster, 16 days at Evans Head, 23 days at Kiama, and 25 days at Ulladulla. The fewer number of days on the North Coast was due to strong winds and large swell preventing deployment. Environmental conditions determined how long SMART drumlines were deployed on any given day, ranging from 4:34h to 11:51h. On average, SMART drumlines were deployed daily for 8:50h at Kiama, 9:07h at Ballina-Lennox Head, 9:08h at Coffs Harbour, 9:13h at Forster, 9:21h at Evans Head, and 9:43h at Ulladulla.

Total catches

During February 2018 a total of seven target sharks from three locations were caught (Table 1): six Tiger Sharks (2 males, 3 females and 1 unknown) and one White Shark (1 male).  Two Tiger Sharks were each caught at Kiama, Forster, and Ballina-Lennox Head (Tables 1 and 2).

While no animals were caught at Coffs Harbour or Evans Head, a pattern of fewer target species being caught in February 2017 was seen at Ballina-Lennox and Evans Head again in 2018 (Table 1 and 2).

A total of six non-target animals were caught (Table 1 and 3), including one Sandbar Shark at Ballina- Lennox Head and five Dusky Whalers from Forster, Kiama, and Ulladulla.  All animals were released alive and in good condition.

Comments

When the contractor responded to eleven alerts that had no catch, they found that one hook had no bait, on six hooks the bait was fully intact, and the remaining hooks had 10, 20, 50, or 80% of the bait remaining.

On the 25 February 2018, a Tiger Shark (approx. 1.8 m TL) hooked on a SMART drumline off Boulders Beach, Ballina escaped whilst being secured to the contractor vessel. Furthermore, two SMART drumlines failed to set off any alert:  Mollymook Beach, Ulladulla on 2 February 2018 and Jones Beach, Kiama on 20 February 2018. When the contractors arrived at the respective drumlines for retrieval at the end of the day, a 1.2 m TL Dusky Whaler and 1.6 m TL Tiger Shark was found hooked on the line at each location (Table 1). They were tagged and released alive.

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

Table 1: The date and time of capture of species and their sizes (total length in m for sharks, disc width for rays), sex and status during the month of February 2018.

* indicates where no alert was received and the shark was found during retrieval at the end of the day.

Other tables

• Table 2: Cumulative total of target shark species caught on SMART drumlines since December 2016 (PDF, 159.98 KB)
• Table 3: Cumulative total of non-target species caught on SMART drumlines since December 2016 (PDF, 488.97 KB)