Bali December 2023
Lembeh 2022
After 2 years of planning due to COVID shut down I finally managed to get to Lembeh and it did not disappoint. So many critters on each dive.
Bali 2022
My first time to Bali and teamed up with Ajiex Dharma to find and shoot nudi’s. Mainly standard shooting with snoot but we began to branch into more creative lighting techniques and use of minigear torches.
Bali March 2023
Second time diving in Tulamben, Bali, Indonesia and kept things pretty much the same as the first trip. Stayed at Utama Villa and dived with Ajiex Dharma for 4 dives per day over 10 days. We dived hard and long. Maybe not as many species as the first trip but it didnt disappoint as we tried different shots and lighting as well as finding alot of new species to shoot.
It started with a kiss
Turn down the lighting, put on the Barry White and lets get jiggy with it. Not exactly how a nudbranch mates so lets have a look at what they do to reproduce. To start with its not like they need to find a mate of the opposite sex as they are hermaphrodites. There are limits on how much we know about mate selection, is it looks, personality, a gold-digger or just after a one night (actually closer to one minute) stand. Either way on finding the mate they need to get into the right position. So what is the right position? They are not overly adventurous with both having a gonopore on the right hand side of the body.
The starting point is side-by-side and begin to position themselves for the turn. Perhaps this is the smooth talking stage with some light petting.
The nudibranch at the top was the instigator here and began turning to the right, sliding over the head of the mating partner.
With the turn being complete they line up to commence mating and the exchange of sperm through the gonopore.
Once the act has been completed they separate ways, no exchange of phone numbers, no selfies together and definitely no meet the parents to worry about.
Acro-anglerobics
Part of diving and photography is to understand the actions of the subjects you are looking to get images of. For some its fairly obvious that its a mating ritual. Take the cuttlefish for example, they dance around, flash some colours and get jiggy with it. Whilst their appendages may not be human you get the idea of whats going on..
But coming across this striate anglerfish doing a one arm handstand in a sponge, you wonder what was going on its mind. There's no missus anglerfish nearby, so perhaps he's just showing off or keeping trim for when she does come along.
The one below was going for a little walk, then began to lean forward on its front legs and kick its back legs in the air. If you have ever seen a friend 'do the worm' on the dance floor, then its kinda like that.
Whatever they are doing its pretty amusing to watch.
Anglers below the anglers
Chowder Bay in Mosman, NSW is a small beach with a pier in Clifton Gardens. The pier has shark nets to section off an area for swimmers to be able and enjoy the water without fear of man-eating sharks. I do say this very much tongue in cheek but Sydney harbour does have a number of bull sharks, including a relatively recent attack on Paul De Gelder.
The net became encrusted in soft coral and sponge growths and a new home to whites seahorses. Above the surface, fishing is permitted on the ocean side of the pier. Its popularity with fishermen seems to be increasing with a multi-cultural contingent setting up numerous rods looking to catch dinner. Under the water you often find the heads and filleted remains of their catches.
I imagine the words of David Attenborough saying "but nothing goes to waste in the oceans". It seems there is a small ecosystem that lives off the remains of other fish, which in turns attracts predators to feed. When you compare the main pier with the pier on the other side of the bay, you see the increase in species and numbers of fish that feed on the free meals.
I always look out for anglerfish, some of them you see by the wreck in middle of the bay. Others are in and around the pier. Its been a while since I had seen them and after seeing other people images on social media, you start to question your eyesight. Finally it happened, I found the striate anglerfish I was looking for.
The moment you the angler you need to ensure that the current is working with you as the silt on the bottom is prone to kick up with slightest movement and the hairy nature of some anglers leave them prone to have the muck stick to them like velcro. Generally they are hiding away under a piece of sponge, but not Usain Bolt, this guy was a sprinter but rather than running away from me, he ran towards me. It could have been the focus light or the reflection of himself in the dome port, but either way he was on a mission. A slight bit of surge would leave him rocking from side to side with bis hair swaying in the water. He regained his balance and then decided it was time for some fishing. The lure on his head came out and started to dangle it in the hope that he got a nibble.
Whilst he didn't actually get any dinner, you can see in the image below how they open their mouth wide extending it forward and with a big gulp or sucking motion, inhale their meal.
The amazing thing with anglerfish is their diversity. Whilst they sit under the same family (Antennarius striates) and yet they differ significantly which is what makes them so cool.
From the little hairless yellow/orange ones
To the bigger but less colourful (and very hard to find) grey ones.
To the bigger redder ones, its really hard to know whether they start off their lives small orange and bald but then begin to transform in colour and texture with age, or whether they just happen to have their own genetics that separate them evolutionary. Like most creatures in the ocean, dollars to study them in detail are limited, so a lot of information is from the people that dive and record them at the weekends.
With all things photography and diving, there is always one holy grail that I am yet to get a good image of and thats the black angler. I have seen and had the opportunity to photograph plenty, some too big for the 100mm macro lens I use with viz too poor to get a decent image. Others where the angler is so black (and not hairy) but sucks every ounce of light you blast at it, laughing at your feeble attempts to get contrast and finally the time when you think you got the shot. You check the histogram, zoom in and everything is perfect. High giving yourself you move onto another subject only to find when you download it that some gremlin got into your camera and replaced your perfect image with one that is terrible. I am yet to work out how that happens, but its always with black anglers. Until next time..............
Battle of the blues
It was 1999 when I first returned to Sydney, Australia after my parents moved to England around 1980. I spent about 4 months diving the East coast of Australia from Sydney up to Cairns. It was during my dive master course with Prodive that I first encountered the blue bottle jellyfish, known in Europe as the Portuguese Man-o-war (Physalia physalis). It was a windy day with a swell coming into Gordon's Bsy. Trying to get students that resemble a baby giraffe standing for the first time to get into the water with their dive equipment on. Their balance and poise terrible, not listening to instruction and to add to the drama a heap of these blue jellyfish being swept in. I remember using my fins to push them away to try and create a corridor for the students to get in but got one around my tank neck that stung me.
Fast forward to 2006 and I (finally) moved back to Sydney and in addition to diving decided to try my luck at surfing. When the swells hit from the NE we got good wave action and some good rides, but low and behold we also got blue bottles.
Fast forward in time again to 2018 and I wanted to get an image of a blue bottle. Whilst highly annoying when you are in the water they have a beauty which is strange for such a simple organism. Matty Smith put them firmly in the public eye with his epic image of an above/below composition which needless to say won awards.
I needed to get my bluebottle on!
I started shooting more macro in the last 2 years and sold my soul to the nudibranch devil. I want different shots, new species and the chance to increase my collection. I was reading about a nudibranch that floated on the surface and ate the blue bottles. Now thats a cool nudi! They have a blue colour to them as well as they feed on the blue bottles storing stinging cells within its own tissues as defense against predation. Is it better to get stung by the jellyfish or the nudi that eats the jellyfish?
This weekend we had the strong E/NE swell and winds so I decided to get my gear, an old screw top supplements jar and a garden hand shovel and headed to Collaroy beach. It wasn't long before I found the blue bottles, but only came across the single Glaucus atlanticus (blue serpent nudi). Once I had these specimens that had washed up packed away I intended to head to a rock pool but this time of the year, people are out till late, so that was off the cards. I decided to try North Narrabeen lagoon. It gets closed to the open ocean and was hoping that it would be both clear and relatively free of people. Again, not quite so, but I did manage to find some space and began taking images (to much amusement of passers-by) using my Canon 5D MKIII and 100mm macro in a Nauticam housing with 2 x Inon strobes. I tried and tried but with very limited results. I needed to pack up and get home as we were going out for dinner, but I kept thinking on how to get the shot I wanted. I realised I needed to be more prepared for that shot but I wanted to optimise my specimens and get an image.
I got home and poured my sea water, blue bottle, blue serpent nudi cocktail into a black container and went for a topside image, attached my macro ring flash and started shooting as soon as we got back from dinner. A nice controlled environment with clear water is what a studio shot is all about. I used a low angle with a reduction of -1 exposure on the flash to keep reflection low and ensure I wasn't illuminating the bottom of the container.
Bare Island Pygmy's
I was first shown the pygmy pipehorses of Kurnell but it was the ones at Bare Island that first got my attention. Experienced local divers like Michael McFadyen and Kim Dinh had posted images on social media and that started my journey.
Kurnell is about an hours drive from my home on Sydney's, Northern Beaches. If you have ever driven in Sydney you will know the traffic is terrible and the parking horrendous. Planning your dives has to be first thing in the morning otherwise you run the risk of not being able to park, which means no diving or if you are lucky then you will probably spend the entire day at the dive site.
On Saturday I arranged to meet Kim and Eddie at Bare Island around 9am. This is a little later than i would usually get there so cherished the lie in. We got kitted up and headed into the water. I am on a closed-circuit rebreather with Kim and Eddie on open-circuit. This allows me a longer dive, but also was the cause of me losing them initially. I descended, got my equipment dialled in and tracked them on the surface. I stopped to take a few test shots and by that stage they were gone from sight. I surfaced, but they had already descended. I knew roughly where they would be, its a relatively simple dive site, follow the reef around the island. My plan was to get ahead of where i think they would be and then turn around to bump into them at some point. It was about 20 mins or so before that happened.
I saw a solitary sea tulip with a fish feeding around the base. I headed over to investigate when a little flash of colour caught my eye. It was a clingfish that settled on the stem of the sea tulip.
When you start diving with PADI you learn underwater hand signals like, OK, going up, going down etc. When you are looking for macro subjects its slightly different, you have someone like Kim that has eagle eyes for spotting the smallest of critters, and you have me that went and bought a magnifying glass to help him see. Kim patiently showed me this nudibranch with eggs. She was laughing as I tried to pretend to be Sherlock Holmes investigating the area. I saw the eggs (not actually knowing they were eggs) so framed the shot and took the image. After the dive at the car park, she asked if i saw the pink nudibranch. Erm.....what pink nudibranch? I downloaded my images and was fortunate that the depth of field i used in the image had the nudibranch in sharp focus. This is literally a centimetre at most, so surely I can be forgiven for my blindness.
In identifying the nudibranch I posted toy Nudibranch Central on Facebook, Gary Cobb says, "This aeolid was called Trinchesia or Cuthona then Gosliner wrote a paper and placed them under Tenellia. There was a recent paper that wants to put them back and we are waiting for Gosliners rebuttal, meanwhile we go by Tenellia."
With the nudbranch image captured, we headed on to a section of reef with a nice soft coral/sponge section. The hand signal for pygmy was given and I knew we were where we wanted to be. I spotted in my torch beam, then turned it off as the bright light can make them turn away from you. Instead I switched the red light focus light of my strobe on. It's a patience game, of choosing your spot focus point, taking some test shots to get the light directed right and with appropriate power, then wait for it to move into the zone. I will happily spend a long time just waiting, watching and generally enjoying the moment, but when the action happens I squeeze the shutter button. I pretty much know I have the shot when I take it, you want the eye looking at you and that being where the spot focus is targeting. With image captured I left to look for the others.
The next subject Kim found was a painted angler fish. These are fairly small critters and can be on the top of the reef or tucked into the side. This one was about a foot off the floor and wedged into the reef with some weedy substrate partly covering him. There wasn't a huge amount of room to manoeuvre so I was limited to the shot I could get. I use a nauticam housing with a 45 degree viewfinder which allows me to have the camera point up but still see the subject even though the camera is on the sand.
Kim and Eddie's air was getting low so they headed back to shore, I decided to carry on looking out for new subjects. You don't always see something new, you hope, and search and sometimes you get rewarded. The nudibranch collection continues to grow and it was further added to with this one Hypselodoris obscura. Not sure what it is about finding a new species for the collection but ironically on the Sunday I saw 2 more. Not the first time it's happened,
After 2 hours I was done for the day, I surfaced and exited the water and walked back up the hill. Kim and Eddie had kindly waited for me and we chatted about what we saw. I was happy to get the pygmy image, until Kim asked "which one did you get the cream one or the green/yellow one?". Damn ! I only saw the one, looks like I am coming back tomorrow to find it.
Tomorrow (Sunday) came and I got back in the water and headed round to where we found the first one. It felt warm in the water to begin with, but as you turned south the temperature really dropped. This wasn't helped by my dry-suit being a little leaky in the feet and also the neck and wrist seals needing replacing. That being said I had my big boy pants on and knew my objective. I found the spot, and easily found both. They were being rather camera shy today, lots of bum pictures. I spent a long time there waiting, waiting waiting and then snap snap. Yesterdays pygmy pipehorse had moved a little to the left and closer to a piece of sponge/coral which was a nice composition. The cream pygmy pipehorse I wanted with more contrast against a black background.
Mission accomplished !!
The search for the Sydney Pygmy Pipehorse
There are those that dive frequently and enjoy searching the ocean and the reefs for new things. More often than not they look for things that are large and impressive. Sharks, turtles, rays and shoals of brightly coloured fish. But there is a group that are fascinated by the small things, the things that most of us just dive past. It is only once you begin to understand what it is you are looking for do you then try and understand how to find it.
I had been shooting macro on land for some time and I finally ended up giving way to temptation and purchased a port for the housing to be able to shoot macro underwater. With camera and housing in hand i ventured to Chowder Bay near Mosman, Sydney where there is a pier that stretches out into the ocean. You will always find fisherman on the pier trying their luck for a decent sized catch. On the legs of the pier and along the edges of the pier are shark nets that all are home to the Whites Seahorse and the Pot-Bellied Seahorse. This is where my macro journey started. I had recently seen a number of posts of the Sydney Pygmy Pipehorses (Idiotropiscis lumnitzeri). Mesmorised by their small size, colourful bodies and the difficulty it is to find them I wanted to take up the challenge to find them.
Researching the Pygmy Pipehorse showed that they were more prevalent in the Botany Bay area and in particular Bare Island near La Peruse. I have dived Bare Island a number of times but none as a photographer. I did my Poseidon Rebreather course there a number of years ago so was somewhat familiar with it. Checking the tide charts and the swell, I made the decision to drive south, across the Harbour Bridge and onto the dive site.
Over the course of 3 weeks I saw a huge variety of nudibranchs that I added to my collection but no Pygmy Pipiehorses. Here are a couple of the nudibranchs I saw during these dives.
I reached out to Kim Dinh, an expert in finding the seemingly smallest of critters and sought advice. She advised "you just pick a rock and stare until you see something moves differently, then look closer." It does sound like mission impossible, but I tried it but still to no avail. Other experienced macro photographers also chose Kurnell, near Cronulla. I packed my kit up and with a day off work on the Friday before Christmas I headed down there. I have never dived there so was driving through the National Park trying to see where the dive sites were but couldn't find them. I turned the car around thinking i was well past where i should be. As I headed back i saw a car to the side of the road and a gentleman with twin tanks in his car. I pulled over to seek directions and was pleased to see it was Andrew Trevor-Jones. I was friends on Facebook with Andrew but never formally met. It was many of his photos that inspired me to look for them. He gave me a wealth of information on the sites, entry and exit points and some underwater landmarks to keep an eye out for. Information in my head, kitted up and dived The Steps. If I get at least one image that I think is a keeper for the collection I am happy. This dive didn't get me any Pygmy Pipehorses but it did get me this nudibranch.
On the Saturday, I headed to Kurnell, this time with dive buddy, Pete McGee. We planned to do the Leap and drift down to The Steps. The Steps gets its name from, yes you guessed it, a big set of steps that rise from the ocean rocks up the side of the cliff. Even writing this my legs hurt. Its a lung buster of a climb.
We headed over the boulders taking more of a northerly direction which meant we had spent a fair amount of time at 20+m. For me this is the best part of a rebreather as I am breathing blended nitrox to optimise my non-decompression time, but Pete was on air and his no deco period came a bit too quickly. We did find a couple of Weedy Sea Dragons that Pete got to shoot, whilst I found these two Pteraeolidia ianthina variants. These are known to divers as 'Blue Dragons'. There are heaps of them around, but this the first time I have seen the variant on the right of the image and the way they were positioned was perfect composition for the shot.
Sunday came around and we met at a more leisurely 9am. The sun was up and it was forecast to be a stinking hot day. The talk in the car park was about water temperature. Its been a cold spring with water temperature often not over 16 degrees. One diver commented that yesterday it was 19 degrees, which i raised an eyebrow at, as even with my dry suit on, it felt colder than that. Andrew was in a semi-dry suit, so thermal protection was going to be more of an issue for him and he kitted up with 19 degrees in mind. For those that are not divers, when you get cold, theres nothing worse, you want to stay under, but you shiver, your mind wanders elsewhere and you can get hypothermic so you need to be careful not to push it too far. Once we kept into the water, signalled to defend we headed North West to the sand line and to the boulders with sponges, soft corals and more life. Each boulder has its own charm and activity so theres no exact science to finding Pygmy Pipehorses. They can be around weeds. sponges literally anything so you have to find a boulder and begin the search. Andrew was the eyes, he has experienced in knowing the areas best to look and wasn't long before he signalled to me that there were 2. I approached with excitement, looking at where he pointed and then confused when i couldn't see anything. I shined my torch, and relaxed as i adjusted my eyes. Then, I started to see, the surge moved the weed and as it moved you could see the little figure sway just after it. Seeing it is the first stage, then you put the viewfinder to your eye and have to find it again. I switched my main light off and my strobe light on, its got a red filter which seems to be less invasive. Once i had the strobe light on the subject and noting the area around it, I worked the subject to the focus area, I knew my setting were pretty much there as I took test shots beforehand. ISO 200, 1/250, f9 with 2 strobes at 45 degrees to the subject and well advanced of the port. Once I got the images, we then found another boulder with 3 more and then another with 2 more. Andrew was getting low on air and cold so we split up meeting on the shore 15 mins later. Whilst its mission accomplished to find them and get the images, you then have to go home and process them. You hope you nailed it, focus is everything and with the surge, your buoyancy and the subject all moving, you risk missing focus on the key area, the eye. Pretty stoked how they came out.
Now that I have achieved the shots I wanted its easy to find something new. I don't think my journey with these amazing little critters is finished, i want to be able to train my eye to find them on my own, as these skills are essential for all macro photography. It about breaking shape, colour, movement and texture from its surroundings.
There are also a large number of anglerfish here too, which are always fun to find and take images of. This one is a red-fingered anglerfish (Porophryne erythrodactylus). I look forward to the next series of images of these and the painted anglerfish too
Whites seahorse (Hippocampus whitei)
A day with the seahorses
Seahorses are an iconic macro image and I was keen to be able to join the club and get some images myself. Listening to advice from those in the know I headed down to Chowder Bay in Mosman. "They're on the nets, you can't miss them" people would say, but for the unfamiliar eye used to shooting wide angle it was more challenging than expected. Fast forward a few years and many many dives under the belt I see them on most dives down there nowadays.
The dive today i encountered a number of them but in various different places under the pier so keep your eyes peeled and you see them too.
The image above was taken on the nets f5.6, 1/250, ISO 100 using a 100mm macro lens. I had a single Inon Z240 strobe with custom snoot (also know as cheap plumbing pipe from Bunnings). Opening the aperture you need to ensure the focus is pin sharp on the eye as the depth of field is shallow. The background becomes much lighter so you turn the strobe down.
The second image was taken at the base of a pylon and shows the seahorse feeding. There were other divers in the area and the substrate is prone to kick up and leave the area a cloud of muddy water. I closed the aperture to f14, 1/250, ISO 100 and extended the single strobe a lot further forward as I needed to increase the power and reduce the distance to the subject. With backscatter minimised I was able to illuminate the subject solely and avoid the background which is not that photogenic.
Whites Seahorse (Hippocampus whitei)
I wanted to play around with the strobes for the next image so i kept the same subject but switched to a side lighting technique. The strobe arm was forward like the image above but at 90 degrees to the subject so there are going to be areas of shadow that I hoped would create a mood lighting.
Whites Seahorse (Hippocampus whitei)
Next one on the list was found on the newer shark nets. They curl their little tails around the net and gently sway with the wave action. It can be challenging when the swell is up as the focus becomes a pain, but today was easy. I opted for an open aperture again f5.6, 1/250, ISO 100 and was lucky as it was nicely positioned facing forward and next to a colourful piece of soft coral that was growing on the net.
Whites Seahorse (Hippocampus whitei)
The final image today was taken over by the sea grass patch in the shallows near the shark nets. Its tail was wrapped around sea grass and trying to the get an image was tricky as the focusing jumped between the sea grass and the subject. It took a few shots to get it right. I wanted to have a bit of depth of field to show the sea grass but not too much that it was distracting. I set the aperture to f7.1, 1/250, ISO 100
So next time you go to Chowder Bay, there's more seahorses to see than just the ones on the nets, check the pylons, around the pylons and in the sea grass too.
Shark prevention is not a cure and our response needs to be measured
So far this year there have been over 700 car fatalities on Australian roads. That’s about 115 per month and works out to be 5 deaths per 100,000 people. Recently there has been considerable media attention to the attacks on humans by sharks which when you put it into perspective works out to be 0.1 per 100,000 people. This rate becomes even less if you live inland and never go near the oceans.
Public perception of sharks took a hit post the release of the 1975 movie “Jaws”, but this also inspired some our greatest conservationist, biologist and shark lovers.
Today though, whilst our understanding of the sharks themselves has improved from scientific study we are still in fear of them and contact between humans and sharks continues. Sometimes in a random one-off incident and other times a period of activity around certain beaches. The Australian Shark Attack File Annual Report Summary for 2017 currently reports that so far that year to date there has been 1 fatality in all States and Territories, with a further 9 people injured. So what we can do to protect ourselves from shark attacks? Vincent Raoult, a post-doctoral fellow, from the University of Newcastle who has trained in fisheries shark behavior and biology says there are a number of different shark deterrent systems in operation across beaches in NSW designed to limit encounters between sharks and humans.
Shark Nets
Vincent describes shark nets as being in place for over 50 years without a fatality on a beach with them installed. They consist of netting deployed in 10 metres of water, stretching over 150 metres in length with a height of 6m. They act as means to entangle sharks that approach the beach but provide a partial barrier and not a total prevention system.
“The nets are a complex issue because it’s not just about the science. If a politician were to remove the shark nets and someone was to get bit and die then there would be hell to pay for the government.” he said
Compared to other techniques, nets are very cheap to maintain but indiscriminate with significant amount by-catch. The recent expansion of seasonal shark nets deployed at 5 beaches between Lennox Head and Evans Head were in response to the rise in human / shark encounters in 2016/17 in this area. In the initial 5 month period 133 animals were entangled and died, with 120 being caught but released alive.
“Target species as well as by-catch do not go to waste, like a lot of people may think, they are used for science purposes” he said. “The numbers of animals actually killed by nets is insignificant, its not causing any of the species caught to be threatened.”
Drumlines
In 2014 the WA government hit the headlines with their catch-and-kill policy using baited drumlines, following a spate of attacks along the state’s coastline. It was subsequently abandoned after recommendations from the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) due to the potential adverse impact it could have on shark populations.
Drumlines and SMART drumlines, are generally weighted barrels with baited hooks on long lines. Animals bite the bait, become hooked and die from exhaustion. SMART drumlines have one, or two functional hooks, so when the shark bites down on the hook it pulls one of the buoy’s down and starts a mechanism that alerts fisheries management that there is something on that drum line”.
The issue with traditional drumlines is they have a lot of by-catch where they are left in the water for long periods of time and there is no way of knowing when something has taken the bait. They have been very effective at catching large sharks and were developed in the French territory of Reunion, in the Indian ocean to harvest sharks.
Instead of killing the shark, the main focus of the SMART drumline is to release the animal if it is by-catch like a dolphin, ray or turtle, or other non-targeted species of sharks like hammerheads that are not a threat to humans. If they are targeted species of shark, like tiger sharks, bull sharks and white sharks, they get tagged with an acoustic transmitter, pulled out to sea and released.
“The cool thing about the smart drumlines in Australia is it that it is good at protecting surfers as the key group of people at risk from shark bites, but also it has good scientific and conservation benefit as there is no by-catch and you release the tagged sharks to learn more about their movements patterns” he said.
Vincent described the ongoing white shark tagging program led by shark researcher, Barry Bruce. “He’s been tagging white sharks for a while, so the SMART drumlines are a huge supplement to that project. There is already an acoustic receiver array across Australia and so makes sense to continue this project on a larger scale. You have to be able to predict what an animal will do in an given situation. At this stage our understand of white shark behavior and patterns is very limited”
Future of shark deterrent systems
There are other deterrent systems that have been used across the globe that range from magnetic field devices, helicopter surveillance, human spotters overlooking beaches and the use of drones.
Vincent stated that magnets do have an effect of shark behavior, but it is unclear as to whether it will be a deterrent from a curious or hungry shark. If you sell to people a system that will prevent them from getting bit, and that system that fails then the whole technology comes into question. They work in South Africa with less exposed beaches but NSW is more exposed and they are less effective. The strength of the field reduces based on the range of the device, is that going to be possible as you would need extremely powerful magnets and is that practical on devices like surfboards.
The NSW fisheries have conducted a study on how effective helicopters are at spotting sharks in the water. This was undertaken using shark silhouettes placed at different depths to understand how effective the helicopters were at spotting them.
“They had a 30% detection rate due to surface clutter, waves, water clarity , the substrate being light or dark so it makes it hard to see something from the surface as to what’s below it” he said.
With drone footage people will realise that sharks are more prevalent than they used to be aware of which may create concern that shark numbers are increasing, when in fact they are given more information on what has been out there all the time. “There are always sharks at beaches but we need to manage the negative effects, educate people to the dangers, know that there are deterrent systems”.
Traditionally surfers have been anti-shark cull and with the water being the sharks domain, but in the last year or so, some surfers have become more concerned. “One of the bastions of shark conservation has been surfer groups. The fact that they feel threatened by something that has a very low risk is a worry, and its time to have that conversation with those groups to discuss the risk of shark bites and their responsibilities as people and users of the sea and acknowledge that there is some level of risk. Whether they want to balance that level of risk through their enjoyment of surfing is for them to decide, and not necessarily something that justifies the killing of large numbers of innocent until proved guilty animals.”
A few weeks ago a juvenile male white shark named “Fluffy” was washed up on the shoreline in Manly, placed in the ocean pool and finally released offshore. This allowed many people who would not normally get to see a shark up close the chance to remove some of the fear and get excited to learn more about them.
The only way we truly avoid a shark attack is to not get in the water in the first place. We manage our risks every day when we drive a car or cross the road and likewise we need to balance our risks of the ocean accordingly.