• Skip to main content
logo

SEARCH OUR SITE

+61 7 3286 3850
[email protected]
  • Home
  • Our Services
    • Ecosystem and Biodiversity Management
    • Planning and Permitting
    • Expert Witness
    • Laboratory Services
    • Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicles
  • Industries
    • Mining, Oil & Gas
    • Ports & Maritime Operations
    • Government
    • Water Infrastructure
    • Forensic & Legal
    • Effluent Infrastructure
    • Power Generation & Distribution
    • Defence
    • International Aid & Development
    • Waste Management
    • Urban Industrial & Agricultural Development
  • Our Team
  • Case Studies
  • White Papers
  • Our Clients
  • frc News
  • Contact Us

Biologists, Fish and the Possibility of Something Good

By frc environmental | July 19, 2018

The Neptune Islands are famous for their great white sharks that congregate to feed on the pups of New Zealand fur seals, and prior to their local extinction (likely in the mid 1900s), little penguins. But true to nature, the sharks don’t always appear ‘on cue’. After 4 days ‘in the cage’, in water much colder than I’m used to, with no sharks sighted it was time to head back to the office.

Whilst the sharks may have been fickle, the temperate waters surrounding North and South Neptune islands team with life. Near the surface silver trevally form dense schools occasionally parted by large yellowtail kingfish. Closer to the bottom were dense kelp beds covering rocky outcrops. Also near the bottom, 2m+ black stingrays and smaller bullrays mingle with 20kg blue groper, and schools of horseshoe leatherjacket are attracted to the cage.

The cage (and divers within) and the burley used under strict permit conditions undoubtably alter the behaviour of these fishes and also of the gulls that flock around the boat, but the quantities of burley used are not great and can’t be sustaining this rich ecosystem. Perhaps like me, lured to the Neptune Islands by the possibility of seeing a great white, the fishes and gulls are attracted simply by the possibility they might get a feed.

Filed Under: FRC News

Scope

Cleveland Office

   Head Office & Laboratories

Unit 1/7-9 Grant Street
Cleveland Qld 4163
Australia

PO Box 2363
Wellington Point Qld 4160
Australia

+61 7 3286 3850

[email protected]

Maroochydore Office

Administration Office

PO Box 392
Maroochydore Qld 4558
Australia

+61 418 151 072

[email protected]

Follow FRC

© 2022 frc environmental