Why are there so many shark attacks right now?

Already and this is this is the Daily art, this is the Daily ears.

Oh now it makes sense.

Good morning and welcome to the Daily Odds. It's Wednesday, the twenty first of January. I'm Elliott Laurie.

I'm Billy fitz Simons.

This week, three shark attacks were reported at Sydney Beach's over just two days. It's left swimmers along the coastline asking the question what's going on. To help us understand what's driving the spike and what it means for public safety, we're joined by Associate Professor of Environmental Science, doctor Daryl

Elliott, I feel like every single conversation I've had over the past couple of days has been about the shark attacks in Sydney, because it's unusual that there are so many any such a short period of time. Do you want to take us back to the first one that happened this week?

So it all started on Sunday when a twelve year old boy was attacked near Shark Beach in Sydney's East. He was taken to hospital in a critical condition, with police at the time saying he's quote in for the fight of his life now. It was reported that his injuries were consistent with what is believed to have been a large shark, most likely a bull shark.

Okay, And so that was the first attack, that was on Sunday, and then on Monday we heard of another one.

Right, yes, exactly, so we had this first incident. Then on Monday we heard two more reports of shark attacks in Sydney. The first one was an eleven year old boy who had a surfboard bidden by a shark at d Y, which is on Sydney's northern beaches. He was not injured in the incident, but his board certainly was. Did you see the pictures of this I did.

It was a legitimate bite out of the surf a chomp, a chomp, that is a great way to describe it. And luckily the boy wasn't injured, which is easy to think about when you see this photo of the surfboard that has a big chunk taken out of it.

It was certainly a narrow escape and that shark would have got a mouthful of styrofoam at the very least.

Yes.

Now, a few hours after that, a man in his twenties was attacked by a sharknear Manly Beach, which is also in the city's north, not too far from d Y and he was a surfer as well, and it was reported that he was taken to hospital in a critical condition. Now, I just wanted to flag that there has actually been a fourth bite in New South Wales, which came yesterday, so that's Tuesday this week, and this time it was a surfer on the mid North Coast

And in the office we have had so many questions just internally about what is happening, why now, what is it about, you know, weather conditions, if it is that that is causing all of these shark bites, And we put you to the task of asking this to an actual expert, and I believe we're about to hear that interview.

Yeah, for sure. So I spoke to doctor Daryl McFee. He's renowned for being assarlily sort of go to experts on sharks and coastal safety. His work includes a study of shark bite incidents in particular and control measures for sharks, as well as how human activity impacts the behavior of marine life, and he joins us now, Darryl, welcome to the Daily Oz.

Thank you, thanks for having me.

Now we're talking today because there's been three shark attacks in just two days at Sydney Beaches. Can you start by explaining why it feels like there's been a surge in activity over the past week.

It's unusual to have those series of three bytes in twenty four hours, and we've just had a fourth byte in the mid North Coast as well. So at a decaytal trend, the number of shark bites is increasing. We're also getting better at spotting sharks, recording sharks and circulating that information around through various platforms. So it's a common of things, but certainly in New South Wales the number of shark bites has been increasing over.

Time and how does that figure compare to maybe the national trend or the historical trend.

There have been increasing trends in other states, with the exception of Tasmania. The more recent bites have been occurring in northern New South Wales and now we're seeing that series of bites in that short period of time in the greater Sydney area. In the Sydney area, what do we.

Know about the sharks or the type of sharks that are responsible for these bites.

There are three shark species responsible for most serious bites and fatalities. That's the white shark, the tiger shark and the bull shark. At least two of the incidents in Sydney and possibly the third are probably from bull sharks. We expect bull sharks to be present in Sydney Harbor and in the coastal areas around Sydney during these warmer months, particularly during January and February, so it's no surprise that

And why this week is there anything happening with the climate that could have spurred this on.

There's significant rainfall in the catchments. Bull sharks are very well adapted to feeding in murky water. That rain also flashes down the prey of bull sharks and can concentrate them in areas such as the mouth of rivers, estuaries and embayments like Sydney Harbor. It's always the case at low light levels you expect to see more activity from sharks but also other fish predators. Particularly for bull sharks, that later afternoon period seems to be one where they're

A common reaction from people reading the headlines is maybe to have a little bit of panic and maybe stay out of the water. Are you able to put into context what the chances of a shark attack are.

The chance of an unprovoked shark by occurring is very low. It was low last week, it's low this week, and it'll be low again next week. It just doesn't feel like it with this series of bites. But to put it in a perspective, there's been four bites in Sydney Harbor over the last fifty years. Is substantially a greater risk of drowning at a surf beach than you are being killed by a shark. But the government has has closed the beaches silly on the Northern Beaches for forty

And you mentioned there that the new South Belles government they've shut down these beaches and will probably be considering a series of measures that they could take to help with these types of incidents. When we hear about things like culling, increased tracking and shark NEETs. What of those solutions do you think are the most responsible steps to take.

I think in the short term, once the beach is reopened, I think the state government should increase its drone surveillance. There's some practical challenges with drones, but they're a very important and relevant tool for identifying sharks and providing an information back to surf life savers on the beach. There is no one hundred percent way to eliminate shark bites altogether, but we can reduce the risk.

And on the point of shark nets, there's been a lot of discussion over the last year about trials of removing them in places, or you know, potentially expanding them. What's your take on shark nets.

I think the long term approach is that we do need to transition away from lethal methods to more non lethal methods. But these sorts of events obviously do not hasten that transition. So we need to stop looking at shark nets as a binary choice. Shark nets in, shark nets out. We need to be more nuanced and look for that longer term transition and bring the beach communities along with that transition.

Now, before we finish, I was wondering if there's anything about sharks that you want our listeners to know, or maybe a myth that you'd like to dispel.

Look something that's I've always asked about, is that we think we're pretty cool on top of the food chain because we've got five sensors. Sharks have eight, so they have had four hundred and fifty million years of evolution to work out how they set the environment, so they probably think we're pretty primitive with just our five senses. They can detect magnetic fields, so some shark species can migrate large distances based on detecting magnetic fields in the Earth.

That is amazing. Well, Daryl, thank you so much for your time today and thanks for joining the Daily ODS.

Thank you such a fascinating chat. Thank you so much to doctor Daryl McPhee for doing that interview with us. I imagine he's very busy at the moment with the media asking for all of the shark experts to explain to us what is going on, so we really appreciate his time and thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Daily os. We'll be back this afternoon with your evening headlines, but until then, have a good day and stay safe.

My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bunjelung Kalkatin woman from Gadighl country.

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