Shark Man by Riley Elliott

Author:Riley Elliott [Riley Elliott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781775537724
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand
Published: 2014-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Up until this point Ocean and I had only ever spent time with these animals in their own environment for the purpose of expanding the scientific understanding of them. We had never had to document their slaughter. We were both sickened by what we experienced.

In Perth, we met with the independent observers who were going to take me, Ocean and our documentary team out to the drum lines. These people were not hardcore ‘greeny’ activists. They were concerned locals, who understood the impact that the cull would have, not just on their local environment, but as a precedent that could be followed by anyone seeking to remove the natural risks associated with a wild environment. If this was allowed, then what would be next?

When the cull started in their backyard, over 6000 locals protested on Cottesloe Beach in Perth one sunny afternoon. Their banners bore messages like ‘It’s their ocean not ours’, ‘Save our sharks’, ‘Let’s listen to science and end the slaughter’, ‘Scared of sharks? Get a pool’ and ‘Cull politicians, not sharks’.

Among those protestors were our hosts, Andy and Laura Corbe, a young couple in their mid-thirties with two kids, who were well established in their local Perth community. Just as the cull started, the couple had set out on a sailing holiday with their family. From their boat, they witnessed a Department of Fisheries boat dragging a tiger shark for about a kilometre. After being told to stay back, the couple watched in horror as a Fisheries officer shot the creature in the head. This experience was enough to make them put their holiday on hold and spend their time documenting the cull.

It was on the Corbes’ small 4-metre inflatable boat that we would spend a whole day tailing a Fisheries boat, monitoring their 70-odd drum lines.

It was dark, cold and windy when we set out at 4.30am from Perth’s Hillary Marina. The weather added to the ominous feeling I had about the day ahead. Just a kilometre from the marina, only a kilometre offshore, we approached the first set of floats. I could see that they were tangled, an indication that something was caught.

Legislation had been passed to put a 50-metre exclusion zone in place around the drum lines, meaning that we would be arrested if we went any closer. All we could do was sit and wait for a Fisheries vessel to come and check the line.

These lines are set and left overnight so a hooked shark could potentially have been struggling for 12 hours. Given that sharks have a very high oxygen demand, I knew that even if this shark was small enough to be released, it would be unlikely to survive. As we waited, a horrific scene unfolded before our eyes, confirming our worst fears. A long tail trimmed the silky surface of the morning sea. A white belly rolled through the water. From just outside the exclusion zone, we witnessed a 3-metre-plus female tiger shark battling for her life. We knew that neither she nor any tiger shark had been responsible for an attack in Western Australia since 1929.

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