Friday, 1 April, 2022
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Park honour for local couple
Cooking up a great tale
Hair raising experience for a good cause
48-page lift out Property Guide
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PR OP ER TY
Ultra-Trail success The beautiful and yet largely undiscovered Noosa Trail Network came to life over the weekend for the latest addition to Australia’s trail running calendar, the Noosa Ultra-Trail. Officially recognised as a UTMB World Series Qualifier, the event saw more than a thousand runners take on their choice of varied trails ranging from 15km to 100km. Story and photos page 33
Get shark-smart By Phil Jarratt
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Often critiqued by the southern states for lagging behind in modern shark mitigation and deterrent technology, Queensland issued a serious counter-punch at the beginning of last summer with the introduction of a new shark management plan. After more than 60 years of almost total reliance on outmoded shark nets and drumlines, the new plan embraces a broad palette of new technologies like drones and smart drums, plus a new approach to awareness and education programs that emphasises sharks are not the enemy – when we go into the ocean we are sharing their space.
The forward scouts for this new strategy, branded as SharkSmart Qld, arrived in Noosa last week for a targeted education workshop hosted by the Noosa Biosphere Reserve Foundation, the idea being to have a two-way conversation with marine stakeholders and ocean user groups about localising the key messages of SharkSmart. A spokesperson for Fisheries Queensland takes up the story: “Fisheries Queensland’s Shark Control Program is working with the Noosa Biosphere Reserve Foundation to implement targeted SharkSmart education in the Noosa region. “Targeted education initiatives, focusing
on surfers and tailored to local conditions, will be developed. The project’s first workshop was held on Friday 25 March with representatives from Fisheries Queensland, NBRF, Noosa Council, Noosa World Surfing Reserve, Surf Life Saving Queensland, Noosa Surf Life Saving Club and North Shore Boardriders. Workshop participants discussed ways to share local knowledge and the latest scientific evidence about shark behaviours, to help inform surfers about local conditions and shark risk.” So that’s the official version, for now, but in fact it was a far more interesting meeting than that would indicate, with locals involved in surf sports and surf life saving sharing information and views with those at the coalface of
a new science and nature-based strategy for shark mitigation. And let’s face it, SharkSmart is a difficult sell in Noosa where there has not been a fatal shark attack since 1961 when Brisbane dental student and surfer John Grayson Andrews had his lower left leg and left arm ripped off, apparently by a bronze whaler although more recent migratory information seems to contradict that. If it happened today, the young surfer would almost certainly not have died, but back then he never recovered from the loss of blood and died in a Brisbane hospital a few days later. Continued page 6