DIVELOG JUNE 406

MARINE BIOLOGY WITH MIKE SCOTLAND - FISH IDENTIFICATION

The worst incident I have seen was at Cook River on the Gold Coast in the late 1990’s. The second dive day began with the grizzly discovery of 35 wobbegong carcasses left on the boat ramp. Some desperate commercial fishermen had set lines down overnight, stripping Cook Island of wobbies. The dive shop owner said that they got less than $10 worth of flesh from each shark. Sadly, divers at Cook Island were deprived of the pleasure of seeing these

wonderful sharks for several years because of the selfish actions of one person. Cook Island was in the process of being made Marine Reserve at the time. Human interaction Spear fishermen sometimes have close encounters with Carpet sharks. Wobbies have a well-known trait that they will ‘claim the catch’. They will ‘rob’ spearos of their catch bag. After all, the wobbegong is the dominant predator. It is their territory and they own the fishing rights. Humans are trespassing, stealing their food! Whatever fish a human might take actually belongs to the wobbegong anyway. At least, that is how they see it. One diver I knew tried to fend off a wobby, trying to take fish from his catch bag. The wobby bit him on the forearm and latched on for quite a while. He had a number of puncture wounds below his elbow. You are always best to let the wobby win. They will bite and they can hang on for a long time. Some humans are violent toward wobbegongs. I have

Ornate wobbegongs visit the Tuggerah wreck to feed on the nannygai, yellowtail and cuttles

seen a two metre wobbegong at South West Solitary Island with seventeen wounds on its back. I tried to identify what caused the wounds. They could only be knife wounds. The only explanation I could identify was that someone had stabbed the shark with a sharp knife. I am guessing it was caught and stabbed on a boat and somehow escaped back into the water or tossed overboard to die. Many divers have done swim throughs to find themselves face to face with a wobby in a tight spot. It is a curious feature of wobbies that they sometimes will allow you to pass or better still to retreat without attacking you. Wobbegongs are a very beautiful and majestic animal. We divers can admire them and enjoy seeing these magnificent predators in the wild. Always remember that they are a powerful and dangerous shark. For divers who dive deep wrecks with huge schools of nannygai, the big wobbies do eat the nannygai. When there are no

wobbegongs on the Tuggerah, the nannygai population has been eaten out and is in recovery mode.

Always show them the respect that they deserve

78

DIVE LOG Australasia #406 - June ‘24

www.divelog.net.au