Samantha Motion: Was it better when we didn’t know where the sharks are?

OPINION

“You’d almost rather not know,” said shark researcher Riley Elliott, after recently launching the great white shark tracking app that has been the talk of western Bay of Plenty beachgoers this summer.

Well, we know now, and many of us may be wishing we stayed ignorant.

Never mind Cyclone Hale, Prince Harry, festival cancellations or that bouncy castle incident - the talk of the tents and seaside towns this year are Daisy and Takami.

The Sustainable Ocean Society’s Great White App has been tracking two great whites, first tagged at Bowentown, on their summer holiday tour of the region’s marine heatwave-warmed waters.

While we whinge our way through this sodden summer, the pair seem unaffected by the never-ending rain.

Real-time, publicly available tracking data shows Daisy - a 2.75m female - meandering to the East Cape, where she hung out for a bit before doubling back to hotspot Mount Maunganui, then on towards Waihi.

Takami spent time at the north end of Tauranga’s harbour and her tag last pinged off the northern tip of Matakana Island.

Both sharks have spent a lot more time hugging our ocean shorelines than swimmers and surfers would perhaps like to imagine.

It’s one thing to know you’re never alone in the water, but quite another to know satellites recently tracked an apex predator in the local area.

Elliott has permission to tag and track another 18 great whites locally, so we are set to be awash in even more uncomfortable data.

Increasing awareness of sharks in our waters could have downsides such as stoking unnecessary fear of a species already battling a bad PR image or justifying overzealous reactive measures when beach hazards such as rips pose a greater risk.

Jaws director Steven Spielberg told BBC radio last month he feels responsible for the shark hunting frenzy that decimated populations in the decades after his bloody blockbuster’s 1975 release.

The good reasons for this research and for making the data public, however, outweigh the downsides.

We have a lot to learn about the numbers, habits and habitats of great whites in this area, and the research could benefit conservation efforts as well as help accurately inform and protect the public.

The likelihood of a shark attack remains low, but the tragic death of teenager Kaelah Marlow after being bitten by a great white at Bowentown two summers ago cannot be forgotten.

“It’s not about the fact the sharks are going to do anything, it’s about the fact that this information is available and if I didn’t share it, and God forbid something happened, that would’ve been the wrong thing to do,” Elliott has said.

If more resources such as drones, watch towers, barriers or, heck - a bigger boat - are needed to prevent shark attacks, then we need good information to support this and ensure any measures are proportional to the risks.

While ignorance may have been bliss, data allows us to put facts over fear.

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