Shark rescue
When Rob and I got the call late in the afternoon of 22nd December 2018 to say that there was a shark stranded on the sandbank at the river mouth with the outgoing tide, we went to see if we could help. Luckily our boat was already in the water which saved us time here.
We had no idea how long the shark had been thrashing around on the shallow sandbank for and time was of the absolute essence here.
After quite some time of Rob trying to pull a very tired, heavily pregnant bull shark weighing approx 180kg on his own and with me trying to keep the boat side of it together, we enrolled the extra and very much appreciated assistance of John Costello as a topman, to allow us to focus on other things going on. We then enrolled an extra pair of hands with our friend and fellow resident and lodge owner Vernon Malyon for extra power and with this all in place, we managed to pull her into slightly deeper water.
The conditions were truly awful with us trying to keep the boat from running onto the sand bank and trying to keep the boat in the deep water channel, as the outgoing tide was sucking down the river mouth and out to sea at a rapid rate.
The light was fading, mist had pulled in with a steady bit of rain just to add to it all.
After at least 1.5 hours, we managed to get her into the deeper water and revive a very tired and stressed animal, to say the least.
Rob kept her head into the current to allow water to flow over her gills and to allow her to get her strength back.
She swam away strong to live another day and with luck still give birth to the pups waiting inside her tummy.
We waited on the sandbank until we had made sure that she had definitely entered the deep channel zone before moving off.
For us, the best Christmas present in the world to be able to assist a shark in distress.
Bull shark females give live birth at river mouth areas in the summer periods along our coastline and the pups are then left to fend for themselves. Acoustic tagged juveniles have been found to spend at least the first 2 years of their lives in the river system, moving back and forth between the river and ocean areas.