JOURNAL 
JOURNEY TO THE NEPTUNE ISLANDS
August 27, 2010
I landed in Adelaide on a wintry June morning, leaving my comfortable Qantas seat to scurry across the tarmac in the icy rain, to a waiting light aircraft that would take me the last 650 km to my destination. We took off across a rough sea and soon landed in a bland airport that looked more like a field: Port Lincoln. I waited under a small tin shelter for my bag, wind nipping at my cheeks.
Named after the English village in Lincolnshire, by Matthew Flinders, who reached its shores in 1802, while charting our Southern coastline, Port Lincoln still seems remote.
In 1839, settlers made the trip from England, bringing sheep and farming skills with them. Today, agriculture has been surpassed by fishing. The locals catch prawns, abalone and crayfish. The ‘others’, the so-called ‘millionaires’, are catching great southern blue fin tuna. This highly sort- after loot is hunted, gutted and frozen, and placed on waiting Japanese vessels in a matter of hours. Tuna not processed immediately is brought in by purse seine nets, to be kept in holding pens where they are fattened up before being sold.
So, why was I there?
Not for the tuna, as I don’t eat it, due to its exploitation by fisheries, and would never go to a tuna farm to swim with a wild pelagic fish for ‘fun’. I am there for the tunas’ original predator – the great white shark.
I was driven by taxi, a good 20 minutes along the rugged coastline, to the marina, where rows of tuna boats sit, ready to leave before next daybreak. Wedged in among them I found ‘Princess 2’, my ride, looking more like an old Duchess.
I came not for the usual tourist trip, but to join five scientists who were on a mission to tag great whites and deploy buoys with acoustic tracking systems, in an area that sharks frequent.
On board, I was surrounded by laptops, tags, batteries, tape and beer. These guys like a drink. I met the chum boy, Craig, the cheerful hostess, Jennifer, and Andrew, son of legendary Rodney Fox, who started the business 20 years ago after he was attacked by a great white in the 1960’s.
We went to bed late and I woke at 3 am to the gentle rocking of our boat on its way out to sea. I smiled and went back to sleep, until I was woken again, this time with violent rolling and the crashing of waves. This must be the passage they were warning me to take seasickness tablets for. I just made it to the bathroom to throw up. I managed to get dressed and staggered up the stairs to the deck, and while wishing I could be airlifted out, and making one last purge over the side, I looked up to an amazing view. I was hit by a blast of fresh salt air and a spray of waves, and smiled. The rolling waves were raw and wild. A pod of dolphins came past and rode at our bow, until they moved effortlessly away. The shark cages, held tightly by thick rope, rattled in the surge, as if promising me for things to come. Scuba gear was placed neatly along the seats, and defrosting tuna were tied to the rails, bait no doubt.
We arrived in a cove of the Neptune Islands, truck stop for the great white shark. Our chum boy started slapping a tuna head across the waters surface. We waited. Then it came. I think I said ‘holy shit’ out loud. I couldn’t help it. The most enormous grey shape, up to seven metres long, had just breached the surface. My heart was racing. This is it. This is a great white, the most feared yet misunderstood creature on the planet, right below me. It rolled, trying to get hold of the tuna, and missed. As if angry, it slapped its tail as it headed back down.
“Right, who is going down in the cages, “ Andrew called out.
More and more sharks were arriving, some taking a bite at the edge of the dive step. It was like living in my favourite film, as a kid, Jaws. Two of the scientists told me to come with them in the rubber boat to fix the computer on the island for the tracking systems, and my smile faded.
Large sharks, rubber inflatable boat, I thought, but when he said the island is off-limits to the public and a one-off experience, I jumped in.
After trying for several tense minutes to get the engine started, we roared off.
“There is no landing step, only slippery rocks, so don’t fall in,” I was told.
I managed to leap across to the rocks, my life depended on it, and then the most amazing thing happened. A baby seal came up, curious and wide eyed. I went for my camera and was told, “You can’t take photos.” Disappointed, I put the camera away and watched the scientists get closer to the gorgeous seal and wished I had done better at maths and chemistry at school, for that opportunity.
Then we trudged up a hill covered in scrub, seals darting left and right from their sleepy nests.
“Be careful of snakes, they bite,” I was told this time.
The scientists reached their computer, which was in an airtight esky with a satellite dish over it.
“Make sure ants don’t get in the esky,” I was instructed and proceeded to brush them away.
When that was done, we sat on the white sand and watched the brown fur seals around us. Some played with each other in the small surf, while others sunbaked. I imaged this to be what it would have been like for Darwin, when he came ashore to various untouched lands. One scientist pointed out a magnificent white sea lion. He was concerned it was the only one. The fur seals are abundant because they stay and fish close to shore. Their only predator is the great white. The sea lions however, go out far and deep to fish, and get caught in commercial tuna nets.
I was saddened looking at this lone creature, under threat from an industry unlikely to be troubled about its survival.
We sat on the tranquil island and watched another tourist boat arrive with shark cages. I wondered how the sharks could entertain both boats. I was told three or four more operators were trying to gain licences and access to the area. I felt uneasy about that, not only for the sharks’ welfare, but for the future of the island. Would it remain untouched once the tourists got bored with not enough sharks to go around, and head to land for some seal encounters, and upset their tranquil home.
Back on the Fox boat it was time to deploy the buoys that held the acoustic receivers. That was difficult, and took a while. It was dark when the scientists were done and we had a meal and went to bed.
In the morning, it was time to tag the sharks, and seven were identified successfully, with the tag attached to a spear, which they thrust into the sharks back.
Regular white sharks came past and the scientists would call out their names in delight.
Moo was a confident large female. Marina a sweet tempered girl. A newcomer came along with a rope wrapped around its neck, cutting into its gills. Several attempts were made to get the rope off. When that was achieved, everyone cheered. It was felt to be better than the tagging efforts.
Time to jump in the cages. Underwater, I found it wasn’t dark and gloomy, with killer creatures taking a swing at you. It was surprisingly light, majestic with schools of fish swimming past and rays cruising along. I saw a great white swim toward me and open its mouth. I felt privileged to be so close and to see it in its natural environment, doing what it does best, chasing tuna. I wanted to reach out and touch it, but thought better.
I came to the surface excited. I was now in love with a creature that can’t be tamed, can’t be kept, but that is in danger from man.
We cruised home and I sat in the dark on the back of the boat, watching the black waves and thinking of the sea lion and the sharks. I had come close to a creature that has roamed the oceans for 20 million years. It started to rain again. I didn’t care. I was exhilirated.
Harriet Jones
PAUL DE GELDER - ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME
March 10, 2010
Paul de Gelder sits in his living room on a large couch, relaxed and athletic in a black singlet that reads ‘Clearance Diving Branch’.
He has just spent the early hours of a Saturday morning, his day off, voluntarily posing for my website’s clothing range, the site ironically called Sharks Lair. His dog, a large mastiff cross, recently rescued from the pound, roams the room like a bored lion, then finally flops down at his master’s feet.
Two surfboards, covered in wax, stand propped against a wall. A deep bookcase is double packed with information on military subjects, but also on Spanish, Japanese and even Portuguese language. Medals are displayed in velvet-lined boxes, while a statue of the Buddha, composed and self-contained, sits serenely on the floor underneath them.
De Gelder waits patiently for questions, many times asked of him, about his experience with a shark in the early hours of February 11th, 2009.
That morning he was working in Sydney Harbour, just off Garden Island Naval base, with his elite team, carrying out anti-terrorist exercises. A bull shark happened to be lurking in the same area: they are notorious for their power and curiosity, as well as being labelled ‘man eaters’. The shark lunged its 200 kilogram body at him, clamping down on his right leg. De Gelder reacted by attempting to punch the shark, but realized his right hand was in the bull’s grasp as well. Not one to panic, he reached across with his left hand and struck it.
“ I whacked it in the head and I think I upset it because it started shaking me.”
The punches were enough to make the robust shark let go and disappear. De Gelder swam to the rescue boat, and once hauled onboard by his mates, became unconscious.
“I just relaxed then, because I knew I was safe.”
Not quite.
The shark had not only taken de Gelder’s hand, but most of his thigh. He was losing blood at a dangerous rate, the bite having come inches from the major femoral artery.
“Any closer, I wouldn’t be here.”
Thinking his buddy was dying, de Gelder’s team-mate punched him in the chest.
“After that I was conscious through everything: the tourniquet being applied to my leg, the ambulance ride to the hospital, chatting up the nurses when I got there (he grins), right up until I was put under for my operation.”
The specialists who were presented with de Gelder’s injuries saw a deadly situation. One vascular surgeon likened the damage done by the shark’s bite to that of a guillotine, and protocols for pain relief where re-evaluated due to the severity of the situation.
“My morphine was increased by four times the standard acceptable rate.”
Operating theatre nurses on shift at St Vincent’s Hospital that morning raced to assist in the emergency theatre. “It isn’t often you see a case like this,” one nurse explained.
Once the vascular and plastic surgeons stabilized the wounds, they had no choice but to remove de Gilder’s right hand, and later his right leg, which was amputated above the knee. With no hamstring muscle, the ‘plastics’ team moved de Gelder’s well-formed calf muscle and ankle into the thigh area. The result, a perfectly strong new thigh.
After nine weeks of being confined to his hospital bed, de Gelder was set loose to ‘hop’ and 'fall over' around the ward.
One naval nurse recalls he was constantly insisting on being taken down to the gym.
“He had drains hanging out everywhere, but you can’t stop a guy like that, so we took him."
The Australian Navy supplied de Gelder with an assortment of very sophisticated and expensive prosthetic limbs.
De Gelder became quickly accustomed to his prosthetics, but the equipment can’t withstand his level of activity. He admits that he sends his German-made bionic hand off to be repaired “quite often”. “ I think it goes to a repair shop in Scotland. I broke all the fingers off the other day. The trouble is they are made of plastic and I think I need something like titanium. Something really strong.”
De Gelder has a prosthetic leg that he shows me, which has two chips embedded in it.
“One is for programming, which I do by computer and the other chip is for recharging, which I can do in the car. My nerves have nothing on what this thing can do.”
He has a weight-lifting arm, with an attachment that screws into a dumbbell, and a specially constructed leg for water activities.
“I lost my swimming leg while out on a jet ski with mates. We had to free dive to find it,” he laughs.
He says that the advancement in prosthetic limbs is due to the war in Iraq and to the number of fit, young soldiers who are coming back as amputees. “Ten years ago, I would have had a hook and peg leg.”
Despite his injuries having happened so recently, de Gelder is back at work, now as a trainer, and still swims every day, holding no grudges against sharks as he doesn’t toward dogs.“ I had my nose badly bitten by a dog when I was a kid. I think I was trying to hug it.”
His dog bite has contributed to him finding it difficult to sleep at night from sinus irritation, and his other discomfort is phantom limb pains; a sensation that comes as if from amputated body parts, thought to occur because of the nerves still trying to convey messages to the limbs.
But he is far from bitter, or weary of it all.
“You may as well enjoy your time while you are still here,” he says genuinely.
De Gelder spends a lot of his free time helping charities, and enjoys speaking to kids with cancer, or just inspiring people.
He works five days a week, training recruits for underwater skills that involve welding, brocco cutting and hull searches on warships, so his time free of commitments in which to relax is limited.
As for the shark, he feels it was probably in the area because of a dead body that was found around the same time, or that he was in a black wetsuit and fins and looked like decent prey.
Without sarcasm, he says of his encounter with what was once his greatest fear -“Been there, done that, and it didn’t hurt."
He is now planning to go on a ‘Rodney Fox Dive Adventure’ to swim with great whites in South Australia.
Harriet Jones
Photos by Dee Cameron
HANGING ON TO THE SAWFISH
February 7, 2010
If you fly to Broome, drive two and a half hours to Derby, then a further four and a half hours along a treacherous bush track, you will find yourself in a remote, wild part of Australia that floods in the wet season and dries up to nothing in summer.
It is here that marine scientist Nicole Phillips spent some rare time out of her laboratory, where she is working on a PhD, joining her colleagues on a tagging trip. They were concerned with a particular ray that lives in inland waterways and that desperately needs some recognition for its survival to be secure.
Nicole Phillips is always on the lookout for samples from the freshwater sawfish; her mission is to discover its genetic diversity and population spread in Australian waters.
However, the work of a marine biologist is never straightforward.
“On this trip, we didn’t get to take genetic samples because it was so hot. We had to get them back in the water too quickly for that.
Not to be confused with sawsharks, sawfish are a modified ray with gills on the under-surface of their head, not on the side. The freshwater sawfish that live around Australia are all under serious threat from humans. The concerns begin with its survival as a juvenile. The river areas where the fish will grow for the first five to eight years of its life are under constant strain from recreational fishing, dam building, and the collection of the fish’s saw for trophies by tourists and locals. For these reasons many don’t reach an age to bred and migrate.
Although receiving legislative protection in Western Australia in 2005, and more recently in Queensland, the sawfish is still slow to be identified as a priority by the Northern Territory government, which has responsibility for many rivers where the freshwater sawfish breeds.
Seeing a potential problem for the sawfish’s survival due to limited policies and information, Phillips decided to undertake extensive research to highlight the importance of protecting the ray, focusing on its breeding grounds.
For her PhD, Phillips and her team collected many samples from various sawfish, both dead and alive.
“I got most of my preserved samples of the ray from the sawfish tagging study at Murdoch University, with the help of Jeff Whitty and Dave Morgan, and also from Stirling Peverell in Queensland. Then I personally collected the actual saws from the public in Broome, Derby and Darwin.”
From looking at the samples of freshwater, the green and the dwarf sawfish, Phillips discovered that there is no gene flow through movement and breeding of female sawfish between Western Australia and Queensland. The importance of this, Phillips says, “is that if genetic diversity, or a population, is lost from one region, the damage may be irreversible, as new females are unlikely to migrate from other areas.
“Genetic diversity is needed to maintain healthy populations. If we lose the population of sawfish in the Gulf of Carpentaria, you can’t expect females from Western Australia to turn up and replenish the populations.”
Having found this, Phillips and her team are still working on the situation of the male sawfish’s movements.
Phillips’ research found that female sawfish will only breed in the river mouth. The juvenile then migrates up the river and so the building of dams poses a problem.
“Dams impede their movement and developments such as gas and oil plants make breeding locations unsuitable.
Phillips has a hunch that the females won’t relocate to other areas to breed if their original area is destroyed by industry.
Dams were built in the 1960’s for rice production, and sadly it is not only the sawfish that are affected by these, blocking their migration to and from the sea, crocodiles are also to be seen falling from them in distress, having been stranded by a tide going down.
Despite many obstacles facing Phillips with her research, she remains positive and optimistic. “I try to get at least forty samples, all from different rivers, but saws are notoriously difficult to work with. Getting to the fish is hard. When you finally reach a ‘hotspot’ where they are, you have to wait until nightfall. You can’t work during the day, because the heat can kill them. There are crocodiles everywhere, constantly stalking the boats. We do a scan to check the crocs then lean over our little tin outboards to scoop up the sawfish in nets. That’s how we get a DNA sample and place a tag in them for future tracking.”
Phillips expanded her sawfish studies to the ocean, where the adults spend their lives, relying on help from commercial fisheries, who played a brief cat and mouse game of saying they had no saws, until they established Phillips was not from the Department of Fisheries and would not fine them. They now usually hand over a few as genetic samples.
“I offer the guys our research t-shirts which I send out with vials to be filled up for my studies. Usually they get really annoyed when they catch a sawfish: apart from heavy fines for killing them in the protected three nautical mile Commonwealth waters, it is their nets they are most concerned about. “There is usually lots of cursing when they try to cut them free. The saws on adults are dangerous and the nets are expensive. Fisherman can show some pretty nasty scars from freeing the fish.”
Catching juveniles in the rivers may not leave such nasty scars but nets are still damaged due to the sawfish’s manner of swimming.
“They swing from side to side and easily get entangled in the net. This is okay when scientists are around, but the general feeling of some is to save the net and nothing else”, Phillips says.
Usually, to save a net, local fishermen will cut the saw off the fish, and throw back the body. The sawfish is unlikely to survive, and its saw is taken as a trophy or sold to tourists at the local markets
This practise was highlighted by media exposure in April 2009, when a horrific slaughter of sawfish was reported to the Territory government in Darwin showing hundreds of sawfish found washed up on the coast, their backs broken by commercial fisherman in a gillnetting operation. Fogg Bay and the Finness River were closed to further Barramundi fishing, but only for 90 days, while the event, which was described by Northern Territory Fisheries as ‘disgusting’, was investigated.
Phillips says, “When I put advertisements in the local paper asking for dry samples, I got enthusiastically invited to visit people’s homes, where I witnessed walls covered with private collections of saws. It was distressing.”
Promising, though, is that Phillips receives support from an indigenous group in the Northern Territory, the Jarlmadangah Rangers, who help with tagging in remote areas, which she says is “terrific”. The sawfish holds significance among indigenous people in Western Australia, where it is a totem species for many. Totems are inherited by Aboriginal tribes and give them their cultural identity. In believing they share a common ancestry with their totem species, they hold ceremonies for them, and follow a rule never to eat or abuse their totem.
Philips is up against many obstacles in her quest to save the sawfish, but her inherited American ‘can do’ attitude has produced wonders for the sea creatures in their plight. In Western Australia, she continually puts up posters on the streets, providing information about sawfish, asking for consideration of the species, and, of course, for samples. She has appeared on National Geographic and Animal Planet for the ray, and her colleagues visit schools to spread the word of their unique life and their prospects in the future. Field trips, although extremely dangerous, are considered a ‘high’, because,“ I usually only get to sit in a lab and look at saws, or see sawfish in aquariums.”
With Western Australia and now Queensland on side, enforcing protective laws for the sawfish, Phillips still has to work for the same legislation in the Northern Territory. Apart from trying to educate the locals against collecting saws for trophies, Phillips wants the government to look at keeping the rivers free of dams, and has concern about the proposed gas processing plant for the Kimberly region.
“For the sawfish’s survival, there are critical factors that need to be addressed. We have to make sure these rivers are protected. Australia is deemed to be one of the only remaining areas that have ‘viable’ populations of many species of sawfish, it is the centre for sawfish research. We have a responsibility to look after them. If not, we won’t have enough individuals to breed from, and if only relatives breed, we get inbreeding, and that’s a recipe for defects and a poor prognosis.”
With the biological significance that the sawfish holds, we owe this species its continued survival.
Harriet Jones
Photo(No2) Courtesy of Simon Visser
