Wildlife

While female swimmers once objected to the presence of 'creepy things' at Wollongong's Nuns Baths, the presence of fish and other wildlife in and around the ocean bath is a significant part of their appeal.

While often disliking seaweed, or fearing what might lurk within it, children usually enjoy the presence of seashore animals such as crabs and shellfish at ocean baths such as Wylies at Coogee. Wildlife found in and around the ocean baths includes shellfish, octopus, sea hares, sea cucumbers, sea urchins, crabs, cunjevoi and anemones. Other animals washed into the baths or onto rocks around the baths include sharks, jelly fish and bluebottles.

During the annual whale migrations, whale watchers take up positions near many of the ocean baths and patrons of the baths are well positioned to observe the migrating whales. While migrating whales usually just swim past the ocean baths, dolphins occasionally venture into the bogey holes like the one at Bronte.

Bag limits restrict the collection of beach worms and other seashore animals along the NSW coast. In 1993, NSW Fisheries established 14 Intertidal Protected areas (IPAs) for 10 metres seaward from the mean high water mark around certain of Sydney's rocky shores for the protection of intertidal wildlife. Several IPAs use the ocean baths as a point of reference as at:
- Northern Beaches (Newport, Narrabeen, Collaroy, Dee Why, North Curl Curl), and
- Eastern Suburbs (Bronte, Clovelly, Giles Baths at Coogee).

While fishing is permitted in IPAs, collecting of seashore animals for bait or other purposes is prohibited. In 2002, six of these IPAs were permanently protected as aquatic reserves including:
- the Narrabeen Head (100m from mean low water),
- Long Reef (from Collaroy rock baths south to the Long Reef Surf Life Saving Club),
- Manly's Cabbage Tree Bay Aquatic reserve (excluding Blueys, the popular recreational fishing site at the south eastern end of the Fairy Bower Headland carpark), and;
- the Bronte-Coogee reserves (surrounding the Bronte Baths, Clovelly Baths and Coogee's Giles Baths).

Altogether 13 aquatic reserves have been declared under the 1994 Fisheries Management Act with the types of protection applying varying from reserve to reserve. The Narrabeen Reserve is a educational venue popular with kindergartens and primary schools and Long Reef Reserve (with its huge variety of habitats) is also important for marine education, often frequented by wobbegongs and Port Jackson sharks and occasionally visited by the endangered grey nurse sharks. Penalties for breaking the rules of an aquatic reserve can include fines up to $110,000 and forfeiture of fishing or diving gear.

Further Information

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