Swimmers flee shark
Hundreds evacuate packed holiday hotspot after ‘very large’ predator spotted close to shore. Amanda Saxton reports.
A packed Coromandel beach was emptied yesterday evening after ‘‘a very large shark’’ was spotted close to shore.
Mother-of-three Phillipa Cameron was at Matarangi beach with her children when members of the local fire brigade drove their four-wheel motorbike across the sand warning beachgoers out of concern for their safety.
‘‘One of my sons started screaming ‘sharks! sharks!’ and everyone got out really quickly ... it was pretty exciting,’’ she said.
The hundreds of people swimming heeded the fire service’s warning.
Cameron said it had been a magnificent day at the beach until then, with warm water ‘‘just great for surfing’’.
‘‘It was one of the busiest days I’d ever seen there, just totally packed,’’ she said.
Fire chief Stu Arnold said he decided to clear the water after consultation with police because he ‘‘felt it’s better to be safe than sorry’’.
He said while there were always sharks around at this time of year, several members of the public had called in to report sightings of ‘‘a very large shark near the beach’’ – which was unusual enough to spark fears of ‘‘a bit of danger’’.
Arnold said he suspected the shark to be a bronze whaler, as that was the most common species in the area.
Department of Conservation marine scientist Clinton Duffy agreed that a ‘‘bronzie’’ was likely, but said it could have been any of the more dangerous species.
‘‘If you’re not certain of the species, it’s always prudent to get out of the water,’’ he said.
‘‘Bronzies, however, are not an aggressive species and aren’t out there looking for anything as large as a human.’’
He said that while sharks start gathering nearer beaches in late October, mid-summer was the ‘‘sharkiest’’ time of year because more humans went swimming and were therefore able to spot them.
‘‘Shark sightings will go on all summer now, as in these calm and warm conditions, people are going to see the sharks.’’
Arnold said that in his 15 years at Matarangi there had never been a shark attack.
But interactions with sharks are not uncommon at this time of year: three boys removed a hook from a bronze whaler’s mouth on Pauanui beach in January, and in the same month on the same beach local spearfisherman Billy Turner filmed himself and a bronze whaler swimming together.
A fisherman was bitten by a mako shark off the coast of Coromandel last year, but only after he had hauled it on board and started gutting it. The shark’s teeth left lacerations in his foot and the man was airlifted to hospital.
A French tourist was also attacked by a shark while bodyboarding in Southland’s Curio Bay in April this year, and survived after wrenching its jaws off her thigh.
Data from Te Ara states there have been nine fatal shark attacks recorded in New Zealand, the last at Auckland’s Muriwai Beach in February 2013 when awardwinning television and short film director Adam Strange was killed while swimming.
One of my sons started screaming ‘sharks! sharks!’ and everyone got out really quickly . . . it was pretty exciting.