Welcome, it’s Adrian Bo from Ray White Park Coast Eastern Suburbs. And today, I’m on the magnificent Coogee Beach to talk about the fascinating evolution of how our local community has managed the threat of sharks in the ocean over the years, including some recent technology developed a century ago and the very latest deployed a few months ago. The city of Sydney had not suffered a fatal shark attack since 1963, until in February of this year a surfer was attacked and sadly died in Little Bay. Then in March, a surfer’s board was bumped by a shark at Maroubra Beach, and a few days ago, a 3-metre Great White was spotted near Bondi Beach. In February of this year, the SMART drumline system, S-M-A-R-T, was installed among the beaches in the Eastern Suburbs. SMART is an acronym representing Shark Management Alert in Real Time. The SMART drumline being a hook baited with one large sea mullet, which when the bait is taken triggers an immediate signal leading to a specialist team placing an acoustic tag on the shark and then taking it a further kilometre out to sea. At the same time, 21 tagged shark listening stations were setup 500-metres off the coastline in this area.

These are buoys that generate a real time alert when a tagged shark is detected in the area. Since the tagging programme began in 2015, there have been 700 White Sharks tagged, 230 Tiger Sharks, and 135 Bull Sharks along the New South Wales coast. Apparently research has found that for every shark in the water there are 140 dolphins. So that’s how modern technology aims to combat the threat of sharks. Now back in 1929, there were 3 shark fatalities within a period of a few weeks off the Eastern Suburbs beaches and at the time this caused a crisis of fear as tourists and locals stopped swimming, hotel bookings plummeted, and the newly built Coogee Pleasure Pier suffered substantial losses. The hero of the hour was a modest man named Frank O’ Grady. O’ Grady was the manager of the surf sheds on the council beaches and he thought he could solve the threat of sharks. He designed and built a fence of galvanised steel that would enclose the southern end of Coogee Beach, which through it’s effectiveness made Coogee Beach incredibly popular again. In fact, in the opening week of the fence, there were believed to be 135,000 people here in Coogee. The celebration of the new fence included a mile long procession from Randwick all the way to Coogee Promenade here.

That night, Coogee Beach held it’s first late night swimming session, the beach being lit up by 18 floodlights and it was standing room only. Night surfing was a colossal local hit attracting 20 to 30,000 people every night. Over the next few months, more than half a million people came through the council turnstile erected for Coogee Beach entry, each paying a penny entry fee. In fact, the Coogee Beach shark fence was so successful that the Labour Government, deep in the economic depression of the time, decided to try to get its share of the revenue being generated. It launched an investigation and discovered that Council didn’t have a formal lease of the beach, hence the surf sheds, shark fence, and turnstile were all illegally erected. In 1932, the Crown Solicitor charged Randwick Council with trespassing on Coogee Beach, however a newly elected Conservative Government saw sense and agreed a lease of 10 pounds with the Council directly. Over the 34 years that I’ve been selling real estate in the Eastern Suburbs, I would say I have sold hundreds of properties with a view of Coogee Beach, including one which I just sold pre-auction, which was apartment seven at Number 3 Kidman Street in Coogee. That’s 74 square metres internal and I sold that for an absolute record price of $1,650,000. And one thing’s for sure, the view doesn’t get old with these properties that enjoyed that outlook. Keeping our beaches safe has always been a priority and I love the fact it was a local council worker that generated worldwide fame at the time for his shark fence invention. Great news, that face nappies are no longer required and the flu has been rebranded back to its original name. And always remember, your home is worth more with Adrian Bo.