What this project is about
Valerie Taylor, world renowned underwater film maker, conservationist and pioneer of grey nurse shark protection is behind the grey nurse shark harmonised census. Find out more about Valerie here.
The idea is to get divers along the East Coast of Australia in the water on a planned day to take a snap shot of how many grey nurse sharks are at the known aggregation sites. We plan to organise four census events every year, one per season.
We know that grey nurse sharks move around through out the year, often only visiting an aggregation site for a few days or weeks at time before moving on to the next site. This makes it difficult to get a sense of how big the population size. Divers regularly visit these sites, and tend to report the good experiences when the count is high. However, there are times that a site will be empty, often for extended periods of time. This selective reporting can give the impression that there are more sharks than there are.
The goal of the census are to get an estimate and photograph as many sharks on the day as possible. Video is helpful too as it is easy to put out stills that can be used for identification. We ask that divers run the images through the upload section on this website so we can see where else they have been seen or if you've discovered a shark that has never been registered. This information is made available to researchers and policy makers so that we can help inform decision to ensure the survival of grey nurse sharks
Why are grey nurse sharks endangered
Grey nurse sharks (Carcharias taurus) are found along the east and west coasts of Australia, and in South Africa and the USA. The east coast population of Australia, spanning between approximately Wolf Rock in QLD down to Narooma in NSW is a genetically distinct species.
The east coast population is listed as Critically Endangered due to its small population size. The decline from overfishing in the 1960s and 1970s has only added to the lack of genetic diversity within this population of sharks.
This species became the first protected shark in the world when the New South Wales Government declared it a protected species in 1984. Grey nurse sharks are protected under fisheries legislation in New South Wales, Tasmania, Queensland and Western Australia. In NSW they are listed as Critically Endangered under the Fisheries Management Act 1994 and in QLD are listed as Endangered under the Nature Conservation Act 1992.
The Grey Nurse Shark (east coast population) total population is estimated to be between 1146 and 1662 individuals (Cardno Ecology Lab 2010).