Beachgoers, swimmers and surfers are not immune to the risk of shark encounters when taking a dip in New Zealand waters, an expert says.<\/p>\n
The advice comes amid high alert across the Tasman, following four shark attacks across New South Wales in less than 48 hours.<\/p>\n
A 12-year-old boy was in intensive care, after\u00a0sustaining critical injuries to both his legs\u00a0in an attack near Shark Beach in Sydney’s eastern suburbs on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Two attacks, both on Sydney’s northern beaches, then occurred in the space of a few hours on Monday.<\/p>\n
A 27-year-old man was in a critical condition after\u00a0suffering severe injuries to his legs\u00a0at Manly’s North Steyne Beach. Earlier that day, an 11-year-old boy escaped injury, after a large bite was taken out of his surfboard at Dee Why.<\/p>\n
A 39-year-old man also\u00a0escaped serious injury in the latest shark attack\u00a0at Point Plomer on the Mid North Coast on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The state government was working with Northern Beaches Council and Surf Life Saving NSW in response to the cluster of attacks.<\/p>\n
Following a bout of bad weather, Australian experts said ocean conditions were ripe for shark activity, particularly bull sharks.<\/p>\n
Shark sightings have also been reported in Auckland, Christchurch and Whang\u0101rei in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
Marine biologist Professor Culum Brown of Macquarie University said sharks were drawn to freshwater flushes to feed on fish and dead animals, as they drifted down from rivers.<\/p>\n
New Zealand shark scientist and conservationist Dr Riley ‘Shark Man’ Elliott has run a long-standing, tag-and-trace programme across the country.<\/p>\n
Speaking to RNZ from a boat in Foveaux Strait, Elliott said the attacks were tragic, but also a reflection of growing population bases.<\/p>\n
“[Great white sharks] have been protected for several decades now and that should increase their numbers, but they do breed very slowly, so their numbers haven’t exploded,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Human populations have grown dramatically and there’s more water recreation, more activities, more sports, more surf appliances. Innately, there’s more people in the water.”<\/p>\n
Although shark attacks were not as common in New Zealand, compared to the warmer climes of Australia, other environmental factors heightened risk.<\/p>\n
“Sharks don’t [hunt] people,” Elliott said. “Where they make mistakes is when they’ve been drawn into a food source, they’re hungry, the visibility’s poor and then people go in the mix.<\/p>\n
“Urbanisation, sedimentation, agriculture, all these things… our harbours used to be crystal clear, now they’re muddy and gross.<\/p>\n
“These animals are trying to hunt in that poor visual environment.”<\/p>\n
Elliott recommended avoiding swimming in periods following heavy rainfall, in river mouths, during dusk and dawn hours, and around ocean carcasses.<\/p>\n
The conservationist had spotted three Australian-tagged great white sharks during his Fiordland expedition.<\/p>\n
“Equally, some of the sharks I’ve tagged down here have gone to Australia, so they move very big distances,” he said.<\/p>\n
A diver was flown to hospital,\u00a0after being bitten by a shark\u00a0– presumed to be a great white – at Dusky Sound in Fiordland National Park last April.<\/p>\n
Elliott said shark attacks were tragic reminders that the ocean wasn’t a playground.<\/p>\n
“If we want to co-exist in nature, we need to understand it, we need to respect it, we need to take care of it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Beachgoers, swimmers and surfers are not immune to the risk of shark encounters when taking a dip in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-244365","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}