Experimental prototype — not an official warning system

Lakes Entrance

East Gippsland, VIC · East Gippsland Shire · Relative human–shark interaction conditions

← East coast corridorEast GippslandMOCKAssessed 21 Sept 2026, 5:51 pmModel 0.1.0-dev

Temperate range-edge

Victoria is represented as a temperate range-edge. Bull-shark thermal suitability is typically low here. White shark / bronze whaler / sevengill assemblages dominate. A Moreton Bay current hypothesis does not extrapolate to Port Phillip.

Bull shark conditions

LOWConfidence VERY LOWbull-shark-0.1-dev

Bull shark ecological conditions are assessed as LOW (development model bull-shark-0.1-dev) with very low confidence. This is not an attack probability and is not the mixed-species 0–100 interaction index.

Factors reducing conditions

  • No live authorised bull-shark detections in vShark.
  • Seasonal prior for this month is not the peak east-coast inshore hypothesis window.

Uncertainty

  • EAC / current velocity is a candidate variable and is not connected.
  • Acoustic receiver health is UNKNOWN — SharkSmart/IMOS tracking is not machine-connected.
  • River discharge gauges are not connected; rainfall is only a proxy.

Environmental indicators are not confirmed shark observations. This is not an attack prediction and is not the mixed-species 0–100 index.

Current state
MODERATE24.5/100

Experimental · uncalibrated

Confidence: MODERATE(46%)

Evidence freshness: 21 Sept 2026, 5:51 pm

Dominant evidence class for the index: Historical seasonal association

Why?

  • No live shark detections — this is not an operational alert
  • Missing SST reduces model confidence

Shark interaction risk is assessed as MODERATE (public index 24.5/100) with moderate combined confidence. Primary drivers: No live shark detections — this is not an operational alert; Missing SST reduces model confidence. 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 NSW SharkSmart advice. vShark is not a government or SLSA product.

Location map

Species conditions

Great white sharkPs 0.50 · contrib 0.276
Thermal 0.35 · Detection 0.00
Bull sharkPs 0.46 · contrib 0.074
Thermal 0.35 · Detection 0.00
Tiger sharkPs 0.46 · contrib 0.104
Thermal 0.35 · Detection 0.00

Victorian temperate range-edge. Bull-shark thermal suitability typically low. White shark / bronze whaler / sevengill more relevant. Not a Moreton pulse extension.

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

No environmental observations stored yet. Open-Meteo ingest writes to a regional centroid.

Human exposure

Class
unknown
Popularity proxy
unknown
Model exposure
0.45

Estimated, not observed counts. No false precision.

Persistent spatial context

  • beach
  • inlet

Geomorphology is persistent context, not a transient observation.

Data gaps

  • sea surface temperature
  • turbidity proxy
  • live detections
  • recent detections

Missing data reduces confidence; it does not mean low risk.

Nearby locations

Data coverage

Where vShark knows little is as important as where it knows more. Missing coverage does not mean low risk.

  • Shark observation coverageNONE

    NSW SharkSmart is not connected. MOCK detections do not enter the score.

  • Ocean coverageMODERATE

    Open-Meteo marine at the Northern Beaches centroid.

  • Weather coverageMODERATE

    Open-Meteo weather at the Northern Beaches centroid.

  • Ecology coverageLOW

    iNaturalist and climatologies are labelled context and do not enter the score.

  • Human exposure coverageLOW

    Provisional calendar and swell proxy only.

  • Sensor coverageNONE

    No authorised detection network connected.

  • Historical coverageLOW

    Assessment history is append-only from this prototype, not a long operational archive.

NOW / HISTORY — recent assessments

Append-only model outputs. New model versions do not rewrite these rows.

WhenBandIndexConfidenceModel

Evidence hierarchy

  1. Direct recent detectionTagged receiver, verified instrument detection, or equivalent in the relevant window.
  2. Verified sightingSighting confirmed by a responsible authority or trained observer.
  3. Multiple corroborated observationsIndependent reports that agree in space and time.
  4. Strong ecological proxyPrey aggregation, carcass, or similar with documented association — still a proxy.
  5. Environmental habitat suitabilityTemperature, depth, and similar suitability — not presence.
  6. Historical seasonal associationClimatology / phenology prior. Not a live observation.
  7. Long-term background prevalenceBaseline occurrence in the region. Weakest for now-casting.

Methodology

Relative interaction risk, not attack probability. Official advice outranks this page. Methodology · Data sources