Lifeguards and a surfer reported seeing a fin in the water at New Brighton Beach just before noon on Saturday. Photo: RNZ / Conan Young
Lifeguards at a popular Christchurch beach are not expecting a shark that saw the water cleared on Saturday afternoon to have lingered.
New Brighton Surf Life Saving Club chairperson Lachlan Hill said a staff member and a surfer reported seeing a fin just before midday yesterday.
"The life guards took out an IRB (inflatable rescue boat) to go and have a closer look and they spotted the shark again.
"They didn't get close enough to determine what type of shark it was or how big the shark was, but just to be cautious they shut down the beach and put some shark signs out."
On Sunday morning, the head life guard would be checking for any further sign of the shark before putting up the flags.
"We don't expect it to be hanging around overly very long because we never really see sharks there," Hill said.
"As long as people swim with a buddy and swim between the flags that's the safest place and there'll be life guards keeping a clear lookout."
A number of surf life saving clubs serviced New Brighton Beach, and Hill said they would all check their respective areas.
Other beaches across the country were forced to close on Saturday after shark sightings.
Lifeguards at Ōhope near the Top 10 Holiday Park in the Eastern Bay of Plenty evacuated the beach after a shark was spotted in the surf about 4pm.
People could be seen standing on the shoreline looking for the shark before leaving the beach soon after.
Lifeguards took down the flags at Ōhope and blew a whistle to alert swimmers of the shark.
Holidaymakers were also warned not to swim at Whiritoa Beach on the Coromandel Peninsula on Friday after reports of multiple shark sightings.
A spokesman for the Whiritoa Lifeguard Service told the Herald there had been three separate shark sightings close to the shore on Friday and the beach had been closed intermittently.
He said they did not get a good look at the sharks, but thought they may have been bronze whalers - considering how shallow the water was they came into - and said they were "on the smaller side".
He didn't know if the separate sightings were of the same shark.
Surf Life Saving earlier said a shark sighting near the flagged area of Waihī Beach, just down the coast from Whiritoa Beach, forced its temporary closure on Christmas Day.
Lifesaving manager Andy Kent said shark sightings had mainly been reported at Bay of Plenty and Coromandel beaches, including Ōhope, Pukehina, Whiritoa and Papamoa.
"Sharks obviously live in the ocean. The risks of ... shark attacks in New Zealand is incredibly low. The biggest risk at the beach for people swimming is currents and rips," he said.
"You're far more likely to be caught in a rip than you are to be even approached by a shark, regardless of any attacks."
There had been two shark attacks in the past 15 years, Kent said, preceded by half a century of no fatal shark attacks.
In recent weeks, great white sharks had also been seen in Waikato's Kāwhia Harbour.
Waikato Regional Council said it was not unusual at this time of year, when the water started to warm up and sharks were in search of food.
It said swimmers who saw a great white should quickly and calmly get out of the water, and report any sightings of the protected species to the Department of Conservation.
Shark scientist Riley Elliott told RNZ earlier this week the risk of shark attacks was pretty low.
Over summer, sharks headed inshore to drop off their pups in nursery habitats, he said.
Those areas were usually warm, calm, shallow and had lots of small fish, and generally happened to be the nice places people liked to swim in.
"But what that does mean is we don our Speedos and we go to the beach and we see sharks."
The most common shark people would see in the North Island and Upper South Island was the bronze whaler, Elliott said.
Further south, they could encounter the sevengill shark and the great white shark.
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