Nick Carroll: They're Not Your Pets
Screenshot: YouTube/What if we fly
COASTALWATCH | NICK CARROLL
The plague hangs in there! Part two of a series
More People in the Water, More Encounters of the Unplanned Kind
The unexpected surfing boom of 2020 has sold a lotta boards and a lotta rubber. This we know. Yet there have also been some, let’s say, equally unexpected outcomes.
One of these has been Aquatic Animal Attacks — ones not involving sharks.
In the past two weeks, three people have suffered serious injuries after approaching migratory whales off Australian beaches.
It’s semi blind luck there haven’t been more. On August 3, a right whale swam into the bay at Manly with a calf under her fluke. She was almost immediately faced with dozens of people on surfboards of various kinds, who paddled up within a few metres of the pair. Literally in her face.
Now depending on whom you’re willing to believe, there is or isn’t some serious uncertainty about white shark numbers in Australian coastal waters right now. Maybe there’s more than there were 20 years ago, maybe there isn’t.
Whales are also protected from human interference by very specific laws. Those laws state you can’t be on any kind of watercraft — including a surfboard — within 100 metres of a whale. If there’s a calf present, multiply that distance by three. You’re also not allowed to place yourself in the path of a moving whale, nor are you permitted to approach one from behind.
If you’re flying a drone, as the person who shot the footage of the right whale at Manly did, you can’t come within a horizontal distance of 100 metres. Just like a watercraft.
Dolphins also look pretty from the beach. Again, up close, different matter. A large dolphin outweighs you by more than 100 kg and swims faster than almost anything else in the water. They can half pop you out of the water with the shockwave when they come past at pace. Again, they’re wild animals with their own agendas, about which you have no say or involvement.
Can I just offer up some advice here. The same advice anyone who’s spent a good long time in surf zones and outside headland lines will give you.
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