Locals are convinced two commercial shark cage dive operators are altering great white behaviour by throwing baits in the water and luring the big sharks to their boats.
Roy and Melinda Barnsdale along with friends Buzz and Helen Jaine and their three small children were on their way home from fishing in their vessel Sea Rover when they had their unwelcome encounter.
They were fishing off Ackers Point when the seabirds flew off and a three-metre great white appeared. Three gulls perched on the inflatable dinghy attached to the Sea Rover attracted the shark’s attention and it gave the dinghy a bunt after circling from various directions. The shark then rolled and bit into the dinghy, puncturing it on one side.
“We heard the air hiss out and thought we’d better get ashore,” Roy said.
“It was not a full-sized bite, more like a yawn, but it still needed two sizeable patches.”
That is the fourth encounter he has had with a great white in the past three years.
He has been coming to the family bach at Butterfields Beach for all his 61 years and said there was no doubt the shark patterns were changing.
“You don’t want to get to the point where someone’s crunched,” he said. “I used to scuba dive in the area but, by hell, I wouldn’t dare now.”
That latest example of aggressive behaviour is extremely worrying to paua industry leader Storm Stanley, who believes the great whites are becoming bolder and that it is only a matter of time before there is a serious injury or fatality.
“I lived on the island for 10 years from the late 80s and never heard of a single instance of white shark aggression towards small boats in that time,” he said.
“My view is that shark cage tourism is definitely resulting in increasingly aggressive behaviour in the local great white shark population.
“Those promoting this activity will look pretty shabby when the inevitable tragedy happens.”
Great whites, which migrate to the island over the summer months, are now protected under the Wildlife Act.
The concern of those opposed to the shark cage operations just 6km from the main township of Oban is that no one is looking out for the human population.
The Paua Industry Council has taken High Court action under health and safety legislation to try and stop the shark cage diving but Justice Clarke is still to issue her finding.
In the meantime the Department of Conservation has granted licence renewals to the two operators – Bluff-based Shark Dive NZ Ltd and Shark Experience Ltd – for the period December 24, 2016 to August 31, 2017.
That was after the two companies thumbed their noses at DOC and resumed business in October without permits.
“The only change of any note to previous permits was to ask the cagers to install video cameras so that if DOC needed, they could ask to see footage to check any activity complied with the permit conditions – which they don’t enforce anyway,” Stanley said.
“We also note that YouTube footage is no longer being posted by tourists who have gone caging. We can only assume that is because the cagers have prohibited it to avoid being continually exposed as breaching their permit conditions by, amongst other things, letting the great whites take fish baits.
“This was exposed by our own secret shopper filming last year, which DOC failed to act on.”
The number of great whites that have been identified at Stewart Island is 120 plus, individually recognisable from their colour patterns.
Shark cage diving is lucrative, with tourists paying around $600 each to see the sharks up close.
The operators, supported by the tourism industry, continue to insist their activities are having no impact on great white shark behaviour and are no risk to humans.