Shark attacks rare along our coastline
It’s more dangerous driving to Himatangi Beach than any risk of being nibbled by a shark in the surf. I couldn’t find evidence of anyone ever being harried by a shark there, let alone attacked.
However, they are out there, beyond the breakers.
Unfortunately, the reported fatal shark attack at Waihi Beach last week will for many, have the same frightening effect as the movie Jaws.
For upwards of three decades Waihi Beach was our family’s summer escape, where the only pain inflicted was from the nippers of giant paddle crabs. But now, after Waihi’s first shark fatality, it might never seem as safe a haven again.
Shark scares are commonplace there, hardly surprising with Mayor
Island directly offshore, famous for its biggame fishing and where a 481 kilogram mako shark was landed in 1970.
A few years back a friend was fishing well offshore and all the fish hooked were being chomped by sharks. The skipper finally had enough, pulled out a 12-gauge shotgun and boom, one blue shark had had its last supper.
Meanwhile, on the beach, the instant an all-clear was given our kids and everyone else would dart back out dangling their feet in the briny – as in no fear.
Big surf carnivals there always piqued my sporting interest. Manawatu¯ All Black Kevin Schuler was often in the Waihi surfboat powering into the white walls of death, sometimes against the then champion Palmerston North surfboat crew, with veteran Con Fraser aloft at sweep.
The spot in front of the Bowentown motor camp, where the woman was attacked last week, was one we always avoided even though it was patrolled in the holidays.
The foreshore was too steep for our liking, too close to rocks and just around from the boiling Tauranga Harbour-matakana Island entrance where great white, mako and bronze whaler sharks abound.
Fortunately, most of the Manawatu¯ coast has a gentle shelf, as far as Turakina, too shallow for big brutes to come snooping.
Palmerston North Surf Lifesaving Club chairman Alec Mackay has been at Himatangi for two decades and barely recalls a shark scare. A closure was recorded in 2010. The same goes for president Con Fraser, and he has been with the club since 1969.
Their stretch of coastline has few seals, which attract hungry predators, unlike the lower South Island. However, as far as swimming is concerned, the water is warmer than most of the deeper Wellington, Wairarapa and Taranaki beaches.
Typically, three sandbars form at Himatangi and sharks stay beyond them.
The greater danger for swimmers is from rips and holes. Most rescues happen an hour after low tide when the surf is coming in and people are caught out by rips surging between the sandbars. Sharks deserve great respect; they are after all New Zealand’smost dangerous animal, especially at dusk and dawn, their feeding times. The mako, a cousin of the great white, is the fastest fish in the sea and amako head adorns the wall of the Manawatu Marine Boating Club at Foxton.
There are 70 shark species in New Zealand waters, but most caught off Manawatu¯ beaches are small and harmless, of the type landlubbers scoff in fish and chips.
There are carpet sharks with their mottled pattern and nasty dentures, sand sharks or gummies that don’t have teeth but make good eating, the spotted dogfish (lemonfish) and the spiny dogfish, a small shark that can stab the unwary with venomous spines topside.
The boaties encounter blue sharks out in deep water, surfcasters catch small 1-metre hammerheads off Santoft Beach in summer and, in winter, they reel in lengthy tope (school) sharks.
Way back, an old fisherman hauled in a big hammerhead in his flounder net at Waitarere Beach. In more recent times just beyond the Himatangi breakers, at a depth of about seven metres, a thresher shark with its elongated tail was caught in a net.
Most fatal attacks in New Zealand have been by great whites and, since they wouldn’t have a bar of the Manawatu¯ bars, there’s more danger in ignoring the flags, doing burn-outs on the way home or splashing in our polluted rivers.