Busselton
Geographe / Peel, WA · City of Busselton · Relative human–shark interaction conditions
Experimental · uncalibrated
Evidence freshness: 19 Sept 2026, 3:46 pm
Dominant evidence class for the index: Environmental habitat suitability
Why?
- •No live shark detections — this is not an operational alert
- •Water temperature (~17.8°C) favours great white shark thermal suitability
- •Elevated expected human water use
Shark interaction risk is assessed as MODERATE (public index 36.5/100) with moderate combined confidence. Primary drivers: No live shark detections — this is not an operational alert; Water temperature (~17.8°C) favours great white shark thermal suitability; Elevated expected human water use. No live shark-detection feed is connected. This is an experimental development assessment, not an operational warning. Always follow lifeguard instructions, beach closures, and official WA SharkSmart / DPIRD advice. vShark is not a government or SLSA product.
Species conditions
Embayment / estuary-adjacent hypothesis: bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas) share may rise relative to open-coast temperate weightings. Hypothesis to be tested.
Recent detections / sightings
No shark observations are stored for this location. That is a data gap, not evidence that sharks are absent. SharkSmart WA is not machine-connected.
CACHED rows are curated public notices, not a live tagged-shark feed, and do not enter the 0–100 as live detections.
Environmental state
- air_temperatureLIVE14.8 °C20 Sept 2026, 3:00 am
- rainfall_24hLIVE6.2 mm20 Sept 2026, 3:00 am
- sstLIVE17.9 °C20 Sept 2026, 3:00 am
- swell_heightLIVE1.94 m20 Sept 2026, 3:00 am
- wind_direction_degLIVE267 deg20 Sept 2026, 3:00 am
- wind_speed_knLIVE7.1 kn20 Sept 2026, 3:00 am
Human exposure
- Class
- estimated
- Popularity proxy
- high
- Model exposure
- 0.60
Activity classes: swimming, diving, SUP
Estimated, not observed counts. No false precision.
Persistent spatial context
- beach
- jetty
Geomorphology is persistent context, not a transient observation.
Data gaps
- turbidity proxy
- live detections
- recent detections
Missing data reduces confidence; it does not mean low risk.
Nearby locations
- Dunsborough22.3 km
- Yallingup29.5 km
- Cape Naturaliste32.6 km
- Gracetown41.2 km
- Margaret River42.4 km
- Bunbury44.7 km
Data coverage
Where vShark knows little is as important as where it knows more. Missing coverage does not mean low risk.
- Shark observation coverageNONE
SharkSmart WA / DPIRD detections are not machine-connected. No live tagged detections in vShark.
- Ocean coverageMODERATE
Open-Meteo marine SST and wave height at a regional centroid — not a beach sensor.
- Weather coverageMODERATE
Open-Meteo forecast weather at a regional centroid.
- Ecology coverageLOW
No live prey, whale, seal or productivity feed. Seasonal notes are hypotheses or climatology.
- Human exposure coverageLOW
Estimated from popularity class, weekday/weekend and swell. Not a head-count.
- Sensor coverageNONE
No acoustic, camera, drone or eDNA adapters connected.
- Historical coverageLOW
Incident reconstructions are added as frozen validation cases, not a complete history.
NOW / HISTORY — recent assessments
Append-only model outputs. New model versions do not rewrite these rows.
| When | Band | Index | Confidence | Model |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Sept 2026, 3:46 pm | MODERATE | 36.5 | MODERATE | 0.1.0-dev |
| 18 Sept 2026, 10:17 pm | MODERATE | 33.2 | MODERATE | 0.1.0-dev |
| 18 Sept 2026, 8:29 pm | LOW | 23.8 | MODERATE | 0.1.0-dev |
Evidence hierarchy
- Direct recent detection — Tagged receiver, verified instrument detection, or equivalent in the relevant window.
- Verified sighting — Sighting confirmed by a responsible authority or trained observer.
- Multiple corroborated observations — Independent reports that agree in space and time.
- Strong ecological proxy — Prey aggregation, carcass, or similar with documented association — still a proxy.
- Environmental habitat suitability — Temperature, depth, and similar suitability — not presence.
- Historical seasonal association — Climatology / phenology prior. Not a live observation.
- Long-term background prevalence — Baseline occurrence in the region. Weakest for now-casting.
Methodology
Relative interaction risk, not attack probability. Official advice outranks this page. Methodology · Data sources