Beach rescue rise as shark sightings fall

BEACH rescues were up but shark sightings were down over summer on the Surf Coast, according to the peak season debrief presented to the Surf Coast Shire. Councillors received the report for the period covering December and January at their meeting on Tuesday.

Surf Lifesaving Victoria report a total of 110 rescues conducted by either paid lifeguards or volunteers during the peak summer period – more than double the number of rescues from last year (48). However, there were 13,264 preventative actions (15 per cent less) taken on the beach and a total of 302 first aid presentations (10 per cent less) for treatment.

The combined attendance figures from lifeguards and volunteers show a total attendance of 520,551 people to Surf Coast patrolled beaches with Torquay receiving the highest combined visitation of (165,978) followed by Lorne (114,629), Anglesea (108,003), Jan Juc (114,629), Point Roadknight (38,030), Surf Coast (30,220) and Fairhaven (22,184).

The report notes that attendance is estimated by lifeguards and volunteers each day and “should be used as a guide only as the data collection method has a large margin for error”. There were six unconfirmed and two confirmed shark sightings this summer, compared with 20 shark sightings, 13 of which were confirmed, last summer.

Overall, Tourism Research Australia data as of the end of December showed that 2.128 million visitors came to the Surf Coast Shire last year and spent more than $433.7 million in the local economy.

Of those visitors:

• 44 per cent stayed overnight (up from 37 per cent) for a total of 2.44 million visitor nights
• The average length of stay increased from 3 to 3.9 nights
• The total number of day trip visitors decreased to 53 per cent of total visitation (down from 61 per cent)
• International visitors increased from 43,700 to 50,300 and their overnight stays increased by 79 per cent to represent 258,100 nights.