{"id":750840,"date":"2026-08-27T00:10:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T00:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/750840\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T00:10:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T00:10:24","slug":"drone-pilot-films-great-white-tiger-sharks-gorging-on-whale-carcass-off-bawley-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/750840\/","title":{"rendered":"Drone pilot films great white, tiger sharks gorging on whale carcass off Bawley Point"},"content":{"rendered":"

Professional bodyboarder and marine mammal rescue volunteer Lilly Pollard always wanted to film a shark from a drone and hit the jackpot with her first experience last Friday.<\/p>\n

A floating humpback whale carcass off the coast of Bawley Point on the New South Wales South Coast provided a spectacular feeding frenzy for numerous great white and tiger sharks.<\/p>\n

The star of the show was a great white that cruised around a nearby 5-metre fishing boat, matching it for size.<\/p>\n

“It was a monster,” Pollard said.<\/p>\n

“Whether it was just super fat and full of blubber or a big mumma ready to give birth, the girth was huge. She was so chunky.<\/p>\n

“I’d never filmed a shark before, so this was a bucket-list thing.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Sharks arrived quickly to feed on the whale carcass, providing a spectacular scene for boaters. (Supplied: Lilly Pollard)<\/p>\n

Carcass quickly attracted attention<\/p>\n

The whale carcass was floating about 1.5 kilometres off the coast and attracted five sharks in the short time Pollard was flying her drone above it.<\/p>\n

“The other sharks were about 3 to 4 metres long and would come in, have a feed and then cruise around the boats out there,” she said.<\/p>\n

“They were just peacefully taking turns feeding and circling around the boats to check them out.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Lilly Pollard says she doesn’t worry too much about sharks when she’s bodyboarding, especially if they are well fed. (Supplied: Sam Venn)<\/p>\n

The professional bodyboarder said the scene made her a little nervous about what she shared the ocean with.<\/p>\n

“They just want to have a good feed and I weigh about 50 kilograms and I’m bony, so the sharks won’t choose me over a whale carcass,” Pollard said.<\/p>\n

“There’s a risk in the ocean, but as long as they have good food sources they’re not going to choose us.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Duncan Leadbitter says it’s time to work out a clear policy on what to do with whale carcasses. (Supplied: Duncan Leadbitter)<\/p>\n

Marine researcher Duncan Leadbitter said this type of incident would increase as whale numbers grew.<\/p>\n

“The last estimate I saw about whales said they were back to the populations prior to whaling, so what we’ll see is there will be an aging population dying of natural causes,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It will provide feeding opportunities for the sharks on the surface and feed for other creatures for up to decades once they sink.”Should dead whales be towed out to sea?<\/p>\n

Dead whale carcasses are the responsibility of the land manager \u2014 such as the council \u2014 when they wash ashore.<\/p>\n

Councils, the National Parks and Wildlife Service or fisheries authorities advise on what should be done if the carcass remains at sea.<\/p>\n

Nearby public beaches are usually closed with the increased shark activity.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Dead whales provide an easy meal for mature sharks that prefer to feed on dead animals. (Supplied: Calypso Star Charters)<\/p>\n

Mr Leadbitter said towing the whales to the continental shelf about 20kms from the South Coast would put the animal in water with a depth of about 4,000m.<\/p>\n

“There’s a lot of finger-pointing going on and no clarity on [whale removal] policy for this,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We know lots of whales die out at sea and I don’t know how many reports there are of boats running into them and sinking them.<\/p>\n

“It’s time for a mature discussion about this, because we’ll see a lot more whales, more will die and more will wash up on shore, so there needs to be something more rigorous put in place.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Professional bodyboarder and marine mammal rescue volunteer Lilly Pollard always wanted to film a shark from a drone…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":750841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[247971,12474,247968,90,247969,127576,56,54,55,247970,247972,247973,46858,4407],"class_list":["post-750840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-duncan-leadbitter","tag-great-white-shark","tag-lilly-pollard","tag-science","tag-shark-drone-footage","tag-tiger-shark","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-whale-carcass-illawarra","tag-whale-carcass-removal-policy","tag-whale-numbers-nsw","tag-whale-population","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=750840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/750841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=750840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=750840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=750840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}