shark attacks in the area<\/a> – three of them were fatal.<\/p>\nThe bell usually stands silent for months on end, but it has been rung four times over the past two weeks.<\/p>\n
Photographer Mark Stevenson has been surfing the breaks around Dunedin for nearly 50 years.<\/p>\n
He has always been aware that he was not alone.<\/p>\n
“They’re in the ocean, we can’t fool ourselves. They’re out there all the time even when you can’t see them,” he said.<\/p>\n
“In the 70s and 80s when I first started surfing, we’d see sharks and white pointers and all sorts often, every week, especially over summer and after the attacks, we were more aware of them.”<\/p>\n
There had been fewer encounters in recent years, but Stevenson said there were definite signs it was time to get out of the water.<\/p>\n
“I could see all the birds and that flying around and you get this uneasy feeling. You sort of know somethings not right so I came in and went. As soon as I came in, the shark came in. It was a white pointer, chased most of the crew – there was about 10 guys out,” he said.<\/p>\n
“One of the boys sort of got stuck on the outside, couldn’t get past it between the rocks and it just watched him.”<\/p>\n
That was at Whareakeake, but they also visit St Clair beach – one of his favourite breaks.<\/p>\n
“You get that feeling and I looked down and seen this black object moving around. The water’s been quite murky in the last week or two,” he said.<\/p>\n
He was soon back on the shore.<\/p>\n
“Next minute, it breached the water and the shark bell was rung … I went for a surf later in that afternoon and I could see it again just underneath me.”<\/p>\n
Stevenson hoped the recent encounters would remind people to take the shark bell seriously if they heard it.<\/p>\n
He was concerned some had become complacent after a lull in sightings.<\/p>\n
St Clair is the homebreak for Jimi Higgins, the chair of Surfing New Zealand.<\/p>\n
The number of recent sightings was unusual, he said.<\/p>\n
“The locals understand what the shark bell is and the significance of the dangers and they respect it and listen to it,” he said.<\/p>\n
“However, a lot of the student population or tourists don’t really pay much attention to it.<\/p>\n
“When you’re down at St Clair, you see people taking photos of it. It becomes sort of a tourist attraction and I’d hate to think that that lowers the significance of what that is actually there for.”<\/p>\n
It was a rare day to go surfing in Dunedin and not spot a seal or sea lion, Higgins said.<\/p>\n
“You are going into their environment, into their domain so be respectful, whether it’s a seal, sea lion or shark. That’s their home. Give them space, exit the water and be safe,” he said.<\/p>\n
“When you do hear the shark bell or you see people leaving the water because there’s a shark, you should follow suit and do the same.”<\/p>\n
Shark nets used to be in place at St Kilda, St Clair and Brighton beaches each summer, but they were removed more than a decade ago over cost and environmental concerns.<\/p>\n
Auckland Museum’s curator of marine biology Clinton Duffy said Dunedin had a reputation for sharks.<\/p>\n
“There are several species that are relatively common around the Otago coast including Otago Peninsula. The most common large shark’s probably the sevengill, the broadnose sevengill shark.”<\/p>\n
But attacks were rare – there was usually about one or two bites a year from a sevengill shark across the motu.<\/p>\n
“We have a very, very low shark bite rate in New Zealand and even lower incidence of fatal shark attacks so, I mean, it’s still safer to be at the coast than on the roads,” he said.<\/p>\n
So do not let them keep you out of the water, but if that bell rings, you know what to do<\/p>\n
Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The shark bell at the St Clair esplanade has rung out several times in recent weeks. Photo: RNZ…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-423604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423604","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=423604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4N5ZNKE_St_Clair_esplanade_jpg.jpeg\")
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