{"id":618640,"date":"2026-10-02T17:08:29","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T17:08:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/618640\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T17:08:29","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T17:08:29","slug":"summer-sharks-bronze-whaler-spotted-only-20m-from-people-on-papamoa-beach-in-tauranga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/618640\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer sharks: Bronze whaler spotted only 20m from people on P\u0101p\u0101moa Beach in Tauranga"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s sighting was another in a spate of encounters near New Zealand beaches so far this summer.<\/p>\n

Surf Lifesaving eastern manager Chaz Gibbons-Campbell said in the last two weeks we\u2019ve had 42 sightings<\/a> across Coromandel and Bay of Plenty.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s from lifeguards seeing sharks swimming by, and most of them are on the small size range, so sort of under a metre and a half.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gibbons-Campbell said bronze whaler sharks pose no danger<\/a> to swimmers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see them all the time … it\u2019s pretty standard.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were \u201clots of bronze whalers<\/a> out there\u201d at the moment, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause they\u2019re in pup season, they come into shore to get some of the oxygenated water with all the swell and that\u2019s why you see them sitting in shallows – they\u2019re actually just resting. They\u2019re not actually interested in us at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

A shark was spotted in the shallows<\/a> at Mount Maunganui beach early yesterday afternoon by broadcaster Brodie Kane.<\/p>\n

In a mock TV news-style \u201clive cross\u201d to her 58,000 followers on Instagram, Kane said the sighting had \u201cmade some people run out of the water like their lives depended on it\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd really, really causing a drama down here on this absolute scorcher of a day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA Herald reader said P\u0101p\u0101moa Beach is “infested” with bronze whaler sharks at this time of year. Photo \/ Scott Guttery<\/p>\n

Last month, a Southland woman was attacked by a shark<\/a> while wading through a South Island estuary.<\/p>\n

The 21-year-old suffered a significant leg wound in a late-night attack while wading in knee-deep water at about 2am.<\/p>\n

Southland Police said the woman was walking through the water near the Riverton rugby grounds when she was bitten.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe culprit is possibly a seven gill shark, which is present in the estuary. The time of day is a possible factor,\u201d police said.<\/p>\n

\"AA bronze whaler shark was spotted swimming near Tauranga’s P\u0101p\u0101moa Beach. Photo \/ Scott Guttery<\/p>\n

Standard procedure for shark sightings was for lifeguards to assess the risk – how big the shark<\/a> was, the species and where it was going – and to let people know, Gibbons-Campbell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best thing is just to give them a bit of space – respect their presence and hop out of the water for a little bit and most of the time you\u2019re good to go back in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Swimmers should also not swim where people are fishing, and fishers shouldn\u2019t dump their fish carcasses in the shallows \u201cbecause that obviously draws in the sharks\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today\u2019s sighting was another in a spate of encounters near New Zealand beaches so far this summer. Surf…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[18479,11730,4995,7972,1558,32126,21534,3087,71,78,5511,111,139,69,90,2847,384,23282,147,59342,7971,14861,190179,9636,93067,14625,1227,1961,32259,4998,183348,406],"class_list":["post-618640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-20m","tag-afternoon","tag-away","tag-beach","tag-been","tag-bronze","tag-enjoying","tag-fishing","tag-from","tag-in","tag-just","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-only","tag-people","tag-ppmoa","tag-science","tag-seemingly","tag-shark","tag-sharks","tag-sighted","tag-spotted","tag-stalking","tag-summer","tag-tauranga","tag-this","tag-warm","tag-weather","tag-whaler","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618640","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=618640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}