Eleven-year-old Oliver van den Berg returned to nippers at Coogee Beach on Sunday wearing his usual blue cap, goggles and pink rash vest, plus a magnetic shark deterrent band around his ankle.
"As a family, we became much more conscious of the environmental factors, storms, rainfall intensity and things that make [attacks] potentially more likely," said his father Julian, an age manager at Coogee Minnows, the junior surf lifesaving club at the beach where a great white took part of Leah Stewart's left arm in June.
The 2026-27 season opens after a summer that tested confidence in NSW beaches. Last season three people died in shark attacks, a horror run that included four incidents within 48 hours. Among the dead was 12-year-old Nico Antic, fatally bitten by a bull shark in January while swimming with friends at a popular jump rock west of Shark Beach at Nielsen Park in Vaucluse.
Despite the trauma, a record 31,000 children took part in nippers programs across the state in 2025, and Surf Life Saving NSW says 2026 enrolments are on track to meet or slightly exceed that figure by the time late-starting clubs close registrations towards December.
Chief operating officer Phil Ayres partly attributes the strong numbers to aerial surveillance at 97 beaches, the vast majority of them nippers beaches. The state government's $120 million Shark Management Program operates 73 drones, which Primary Industries Minister Tara Moriarty calls one of the most comprehensive shark management programs in the world, and about 54 Surf Life Saving clubs run their own voluntary drone coverage focused on children in the water during nippers events.
"We do risk assessments before, during nippers activities on the weekends and training mid-week, in terms of surf conditions, water visibility and so forth," Ayres said. "There are power craft on location as well. So there are certainly plenty of mitigations as we have always had for our nippers programs."
Macquarie University Emeritus Professor Rob Harcourt cautioned that the 1225 sharks detected by drone operators in July and August reflect increased visibility rather than heightened prevalence. He noted that Surf Life Saving Australia's summer coastal drowning report found 48 per cent of the 50 NSW coastal drowning deaths for the season occurred on beaches, compared with three fatalities from shark attacks over the same period. "Even with the number of shark bites that have caused a lot of concern for everyone, the risk for an individual who goes to the beach occasionally is very, very, very low," he said.
Harcourt also warned that significantly warmer water brought on by the intensifying super El Niño, shaping up to be Australia's wettest on record, will see tropical sharks hang around harbours and estuaries for longer than usual, and called murky or polluted water a "very good gauge" for staying out of the ocean.
The Australian Shark Incident Database, updated in September, records eight shark attacks in NSW in 2026, one of them fatal. The first of four bull shark attacks in 48 hours followed heavy rainfall that produced the murky conditions ambush hunters favour and pushed them closer to shore.
Parents at Coogee said the educational side of nippers, teaching children to read the surf and identify rips, was a key reason for returning, though they had heard of some families opting out. Twelve-year-old Gisele Ashcroft, back for her eighth season, will not swim if the water is murky. "Our marine friends are always present," said her mother Emily, a Minnows executive committee member. "But we all know what to do, and the kids know what to do if that happens, so I think we're really well-prepared and the kids are really well-prepared as well."
Shark safety tips this summer
- Swim between the flags
- Avoid swimming after heavy rain
- Check Beachwatch; if the water is likely to be polluted or murky, treat that as a sign not to swim
- Download the SharkSmart app for real-time shark management alerts
- Know where the shark trauma kit is at your local beach
- Consider doing a first aid course so you know what to do in the case of an attack