The 63 reported sightings to date have been a really good start to the white shark count. Looking at the sighting data gathered so far some clear patterns are emerging. For starters it is obvious that there are a higher number of sightings around Whyalla, Ceduna and other coastal settlements. It is also noted that the sightings are for generally medium sharks, with few reported that are under a metre and only 1 over 6 metres. However, unfortunately there are still not enough sightings to begin to look at the relationships between size and location, sex and location or any of those other aspects that this project one day endeavours to address. Te project is only just beginning to get the number of sightings to start to draw some information out of the data. In short more sightings are need before some conclusions can be reached.
The obvious and expected observation is that most of the sightings are coming from close to the shore and neat towns. This is expected as the sightings are made by people who generally are based in a coastal town and tend to stay in the waters closer to the town. Looking at this data there is no way to see if the frequency of the sharks close to coastal towns is any different to the frequency at other coastal locations. However, this may be an underlying issue, as the sharks may be attracted by the activities present at a coastal town. In order to address this question a different study would need to be set up. However, the fact that the sightings are clustered around coastal settlements is not to the detriment of the project as all the sightings, no matter where they are located give insight into the white shark population.
