Three great white sharks including a large animal with a distinctive white-tipped tail are still hanging around key shark attack zones on the NSW North Coast, the region's helicopter spotters say.
The great whites were seen as recently as Sunday at Lennox Head, South Wall and Lighthouse Beach in the Ballina Shire, said Georgie Latimer, co-owner of Air T&G Helicopters, which has been engaged to spot sharks.
Ballina Shire mayor David Wright said three sharks were seen on Sunday near areas where recent attacks had occurred.
He said such behaviour was unknown in his time.
"These are sharks that are just 10 or 15 metres off the beach. Sometimes they have seen a five-metre shark in waist-deep water. I have lived up here all my life and I haven't seen anything like it," he said.
"The DPI needs to find out why they are doing this. This never happened before."
Cr Wright said nobody had been surfing at Lighthouse Beach since an attack on July 2.
The sharks' return comes as Fairfax Media has learnt the state's Primary Industries Department's tracking program did not have any satellite tracking tags for sharks before the tagging program was announced.
It had to source the tags, of which there were only six in the country, from the CSIRO.
The tagging program, announced this month, is to be funded by a special $250,000 allocation from the NSW government designed to reduce shark attacks and is due to start officially on Wednesday, the DPI has confirmed.
Depending on conditions and the number of animals, the program will involve catching great white sharks in the area and installing satellite tags on them and then monitoring their movements.
The satellite tags track the animals' path underwater, then sends the data to a satellite when they surface.
On Monday, a DPI spokesman said that, because of the expense of satellite tags, the DPI had not had any to hand but had since been able to source six of the devices from the CSIRO.
"It was one phone call [to CSIRO] and now we have around half a dozen tags ready for the initial campaign," the spokesman said.
"We can reassess how many we need once we actually start tagging. What we need to remember is that we are dealing with large animals that can cause significant harm.
"We need to bear in mind that we are tagging animals that need to be found and then safely tagged and tracked. This is a lot different to taking a pet to the vet to be microchipped."
The spokesman said a possible tagging program using hand spears and streamer tags would not be occurring.
"These were initial considerations but have been ruled out," he said.
Cr Wright said he had been told the DPI program would involve 10 officers with three boats - expected into a local harbour on Wednesday.
The DPI spokesman said the tagging and tracking program would involve collaboration with the CSIRO, which has a long track record of working with great whites.
"The CSIRO brings a large amount of experience in tagging and tracking the animals which complements the DPI's experience," he said.
"It's not unusual for research projects to have more than one organisation involved."
The spokesman said that exactly how the government's allocated $250,000 was to be spent had yet to be determined.
"We are finalising the details but it will be invested where we get the best return," he said.
Two surfers have died and two have been severely injured in attacks in northern NSW waters in the past 11 months.
Father-of-three Craig Ison was bitten and nearly died while surfing after being attacked at Evans Head this month.
On July 2, boardboarder Mathew Lee suffered life-threatening injuries in an attack at Lighthouse Beach at Ballina.
In February, Japanese surfer Tadashi Nakahara was killed in a suspected great white shark attack at Shelly Beach, Ballina.
In September, British citizen Paul Wilcox died when he was bitten as he swam just off the beach at Byron Bay.
On Saturday, Dale Carr was attacked at a beach at Port Macquarie on the Mid North Coast.
