1-30 April 2020

Operation

During April 2020, 20 SMART drumlines were deployed for 24 days at Ballina-Lennox Head and 15 SMART drumlines for 28 days at Evans Head. Environmental conditions determined how long SMART drumlines were deployed on any given day, ranging from 4:51h to 10:54h. On average, SMART drumlines were deployed daily for 8:52h at Ballina-Lennox Head and 8:38h at Evans Head.

Catch

During April 2020, nine target sharks were caught (Table 1): six Tiger Sharks at Ballina-Lennox and three Tiger Sharks at Evans Head.  Two non-target animals were caught, including a Loggerhead Turtle that was foul hooked on the flipper and a Dusky Whaler (Table 1).  All animals were released alive.

Comments

When the contractors responded to nine alerts that had no catch, they found four hooks had no bait remaining, one hook had 20%, and four hooks had 100% of the bait remaining.

Two SMART drumlines failed to set off an alert: at Boulders Beach, Ballina on 3 April 2020 and Main Beach, Evans Head on 25 April 2020. At Ballina, the contractor arrived at the drumline for retrieval due to bad weather and found a Tiger Shark on the line, while at Evans Head, a Loggerhead Turtle was found at the end of the day during retrieval. Both animals were released immediately (Table 1).

All other animals triggered an alert to the DPI contractors who responded and were at the SMART drumline within an average of 23 minutes.

Table 1: The date and time of capture of species and their sizes (total length for sharks or disc width for turtles in m), sex, and status during the month of April 2020.

*No trigger. Time is when the contractor arrived to pick up the gear up due to bad weather or the end of the day