Fisherman films great white shark up close
After another shark sighting close to shore in the Bowentown area, a leading shark scientist says he would not go swimming in the area.
A Waih¯ı fisherman had an upclose look at the speed and power of a great white shark on Monday evening.
Josh Lonergan was fishing on a boat off the coast of Bowentown, less than 1km from Anzac Bay, when he spotted the shark chasing a fish he was reeling in..
“The last trevally I caught, I had a shark chase it in. I had a kahawai there so I chucked its head out on a bit of light line and got the camera ready.”
Lonergan captured footage of the shark leaping out of the water. “I was pretty speechless,” he said. “It’s pretty usual but you never get it in that harbour and never get it on video. It was a great white for sure, 100 per cent. it was probably three or metres long least.
“It was pretty close to the bay — with Easter weekend coming I hope nobody’s bloody swimming.”
The area has been a hot spot for shark activity in recent months.
In early January, Hamilton 19-year-old Kaelah Marlow died in a shark attack at Bowentown.
There have been multiple sightings and captures of great white sharks in the area since.
Shark scientist Riley Elliott said he would not encourage swimming in the area, especially before proper research had been done on the growing number of sharks there.
“I personally wouldn’t go swimming in the Bowentown area,” he four at said.
“There’s obviously a lot of great whites there and that’s just out of pure respect for a predator.”
Elliott said harbours and estuaries were predominantly used by bronze whalers as nurseries over the summer months.
“The females can breed and then drop their pups in these shallow, warm, safe areas with small food, that’s why it’s called a nursery, it’s a good place to leave their young,” he said.
“That goes for all animals and when you have years where those nurseries are good, a lot of these babies survive and you have a plethora of food right throughout the food chain. That in itself can lead to the top of the food chain and in this particular area, great whites.”
Elliott said the real point of interest was whether these great whites were there all the time, where they came from and what the future looked like.
He appealed to the Department of Conservation for permission to launch a project investigating great white shark distribution in the northeast of the country in November last year but has been told his application is still being processed.