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Submission to the Senate Inquiry Into Shark Mitigation and Deterrent Measures Australian Aerial Patrol (

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Submission to the Senate Inquiry Into Shark Mitigation and Deterrent Measures Australian Aerial Patrol ( Submission to the Senate Inquiry into Shark mitigation and deterrent measures Australian Aerial Patrol (www.aerialpatrol.com.au) March, 2017 Contact: Duncan Leadbitter 1 1.0 Recommendations The Australian Aerial Patrol recommends to government that it establish a permanent coordinating body to ensure that beach safety providers work together in an integrated fashion to enhance bather safety with respect to sharks. Furthermore, the coordinating body should ensure that a proper plan is prepared and funding is made available for more than just in-water mitigation options. This body could be answerable to the minister with responsibility for emergency services. The Australian Aerial Patrol urges the government to work with it to increase the ability of observers to sight sharks and to improve integration with ground based operators. The Australian government should investigate the creation of aerial patrols in other parts of Australia. With assistance the AAP would be willing to pass on its skills and experience to any community group that wished to go down this path. The AAP believes that government funding could catalyse private sector investment and, if the coordinating body mentioned above is created, then a new era of collaboration in the collection and supply of data could expand knowledge about sharks across the country. The Inquiry needs to explore in detail the value of tagging programs and their potential to protect bathers given the small number of sharks tagged, the number that needs to be tagged and monitored at bathing beaches and the cost of establishing and maintaining a program that provides a meaningful level of protection. 2.0 Key findings We present evidence that aerial patrols are no less effective at protecting beach goers than other established methods. For the Aerial Patrol flight path and the beach meshing program there has been only one fatality in each of the areas covered by these two approaches. The Aerial Patrol has been in the air for almost 60 years. It has enormous local support and strong recognition. It brings comfort to people due to its reputation and is fully independent of State government funding. Whilst dismissed by some as being potentially misleading there is real value in providing people with a sense of security – after all the chance of shark bite is vanishingly small but fear of shark attack may stop some people from going to the beach. After almost 80 years the reason why the mesh nets are claimed to work still has no answer. On the one hand the NSW DPI claims that sharks are encouraged to swim somewhere else but on the other, the pattern of decline in shark catches in the NSW meshing program parallels a culling program in South Africa and past overfishing of sharks in southern Australia. Fisheries agencies need to provide a robust scientific explanation for the program they are managing. The coordination of shark related beach safety by a research organisation has clearly failed to keep pace with public concerns and interests, and a new approach is needed. We note the desperate need for coordination of parties currently involved in shark related beach safety. We note the views by colleagues in beach safety providers that much could be done without allocating funds to fisheries research. The Aerial Patrol supports research but it needs to be outcome focused and meet the needs of policy makers and beach safety providers. It is not an end in itself. At the moment any research on sharks is promoted as relevant to beach safety but there is a yawning gap between what is undertaken and its application to real world issues. There have been a number of tagging programs operating in the State over at least a decade and, whilst the results are interesting, there is no evidence of them being applied. 2 The recovery program for the Great White Shark has no quantitative targets for the recovery of shark stocks and, more worryingly, have no limit reference points to ensure that ongoing exemptions to the EPBC Act do not result in cumulative impacts. Tagging programs may provide some useful data on shark movements but their utility for protecting bathers is unproven and not evaluated by independent scientists. Tagging rates are low and the number of listening stations is unlikely to be of any relevance to bathers. The cost of a bather protection program would be astronomical and beachgoers deserve the full facts on what tagging programs can actually deliver. 3.0 Structure of this submission The AAP welcomes the opportunity to make a submission to this inquiry and to set out in detail how it currently plays an important role in improving the safety of beachgoers. We demonstrate that the Australian Aerial Patrol has beach safety outcomes that are no worse than existing alternatives and has advantages in some situations. We make the case that different methods need to work together such that the advantages of one complement the disadvantages of another. This submission: 1. Sets out the background to the Australian Aerial Patrol including operational procedures relevant to shark spotting; 2. Compares the performance of the Australian Aerial Patrol to other aerial patrols around the country; 3. Compares the Aerial Patrol with other mitigation methods currently in use, especially beach meshing 4. Makes suggestions and recommendations about how the government could improve the coordination of existing beach safety providers and enhance sighting rates for aerial work. 5. Raises questions about the possibility that the expansion of culling programs could put the potential recovery of the Great White Shark at risk or cause depletion on a stock wide scale.` Our recommendations are put forward so that government can have access to a full range of approaches that are of value and can be assured that government and non-government organisations work together in a climate of mutual respect. 4.0 History of the Australian Aerial Patrol The Aerial Patrol was formed in 1957 following a meeting convened by the City of Greater Wollongong Council. The Patrol’s charter, to maintain the safety and the welfare of the community through aerial observation and support, was paramount throughout the organisation and forms to this day the basis for which all operations and activities are conducted and provided. The Australian Aerial Patrol is probably most widely known for its regular shark spotting and beach safety patrols along the coastline between Stanwell Park (south of Sydney) and Mollymook. These patrols are undertaken on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays throughout the course of summer October to April and constitute an observation platform for recreational safety, be it swimming, surfing, boating, fishing, bushwalking and the like as well as maintaining a watchful eye on potential bushfire hazards. As well, the Aerial Patrol is available to respond to an emergency 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. At peak season, weekday patrols are undertaken resulting in up to 6 passes over beaches each day. 3 The years 1992 to 2004 saw the beach patrols conducted over Sydney’s metropolitan beaches at the request of the NSW Surf Lifesaving Association. The Sydney services were withdrawn the summer of 2003 as a result of funding issues despite vigorous dialogue with the six Sydney Coastal Councils and the NSW Government to offset the shortfall. In recent years, the Aerial Patrol has expanded its level of service to the communities of the south east region of New South Wales and through its affiliation with the NSW Volunteer Rescue Association, to the regional inland centres throughout NSW. An accreditation under the State Rescue Policy, administered by the NSW Rescue and Emergency Services Board, provides the necessary authority to the Aerial Patrol to assist and support all land and marine based emergency services when appropriate. In 1993, the Australian Aerial Patrol was recognised by the then Civil Aviation Authority as strategically well positioned, geographically, for Search and Rescue (SAR) and appointed the organisation as an Accredited SAR Unit. This was expanded in 2001 to a Tier 1 SAR capability – the highest level of civilian SAR in the Commonwealth and only one of three such organisations at that time and in the nation. Parallel to that, a Working Agreement was formalised in 1993 between the Aerial Patrol and the Australian Volunteer Coast Guard by the then Minister for Emergency Services constituting the only such Agreement between a marine agency and an aerial support agency in Australia. The Australian Aerial Patrol, as a Registered Charity, has relied entirely on a wide range of community fundraising mechanisms to offset its operational costs. The promotion of annual art unions is without a doubt the Aerial Patrol’s most successful fundraiser. Four Local Government bodies within Illawarra and Shoalhaven provide funding towards the operations and a regional Corporate sponsorship and support from various Registered Clubs and local companies also inject funding towards operations. Further, a number of fundraising functions are conducted throughout the year. Together, these campaigns raise the funds needed each year to ensure the continued operation of the Patrol's current community activities. Aerial Patrol personnel undertake their duties in an honorary and voluntary capacity and are rostered for duty 365 days a year for daylight operations. Air crew consist of 6 fully qualified commercial pilots, 36 qualified airborne observers, 12 accredited dropmasters / dispatchers and ten radio communications officers. The Aerial Patrol is based at the Illawarra Regional Airport at Albion Park. The charter remains as it was in 1957 and will continue as such, although the area of operations has increased somewhat since those early years. 5.0 The AAP and sharks The AAP was established to spot sharks and warn bathers and beach safety providers. Whilst it has a number of other roles it is best known for its role in shark risk management, being known locally as the ‘shark patrol’.
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