Emma Forster | |
---|---|
Born | 1976 |
Occupation(s) | Television presenter, director |
Emma Forster (born 1975) is a South Australian television presenter, director of tourist attraction Swim with the Tuna and advisor for the company, Oceanic Victor. She lives in Port Lincoln where she has developed several properties. She has worked as a presenter on the seafood, fishing and boating television program Out of the Blue, is a friend and business advisor to multi-millionaire tuna rancher Tony Santic and is a former girlfriend of retired South Australian treasurer, Kevin Foley. [1] [2] [3]
In 2013, Forster was co-managing her family's business, Calypso Star Charters and her partner was abalone diver David "Bucky" Buckland. [4] In 2014, Forster served as Secretary for the Port Lincoln Chamber of Commerce and Tourism. [5] Forster is a fisher, and holds longstanding national and South Australian women's and junior records for an eagle ray she caught in Spencer Gulf in 1987 on 10 kg line. The fish weighed 68.5 kilograms and was caught off Thistle Island. [6]
Forster is a director of Port Lincoln-based tourism venture, Swim with the Tuna. Operations were first trialled in South Australia's Boston Bay in 2010 [7] before commencing commercial operations in 2011. The business intended to move to Kangaroo Island, but has faced opposition from conservationists [8] and residents. Proposals to relocated the facility comprising a modified tuna pen and floating pontoon to Nepean Bay have been rejected on two occasions, most recently in 2012. [9] Oceanic Victor (another business for which Forster works as an advisor) proposes to offer a very similar experience to that offered by Swim with the Tuna, located off Granite Island in Encounter Bay. [1] The Swim with the Tuna business was sold in 2015 ahead of the possible relocation to Victor Harbor. Forster claimed that they had held some of their fish captive for five years, the largest having reached a weight of 85 kilograms. [10]
Emma's father Ron Forster built a floating underwater observatory in 1989. Her father's construction was first used in Port Lincoln, where it assisted the development of the tuna industry. It was later sold to Stephen Edwards, who moored it off Granite Island. It operated there as a tourist attraction and educational facility from 1997 to 2004. In 2015, Forster was revealed to be working as an advisor for Oceanic Victor, a company which intends to re-establish a similar facility off Granite Island. The venture intends to offer people the opportunity to swim with Southern bluefin tuna and other marine species, feed fish and observe them underwater. [11] The two directors of Oceanic Victor are also the CEO and Operations Manager of Tony's Tuna International, Tony Šantić and Michael "Mick" Dyer. Tony Šantić is a long-term friend of Forster's who provided her with a character reference after she was charged after crashing her Mercedes and recording a blood-alcohol level of 0.224% in August 2006. [12] She returned to the road in March 2007 with a provisional driver's license. [13]
Forster has co-managed her father's business, Calypso Star Charters, which offers shark cage diving experiences to tourists. Forster's partner David "Bucky" Buckland has encountered many great white sharks while diving for abalone. In 2013 Forster said of Great white sharks:
"The sharks are like rabbits now. They can breed and no one can catch them." [4]
Forster grew up on Fleurieu Peninsula, where she attended Rapid Bay Primary School and Yankalilla Area School. [11] She undertook a Rotary Youth Exchange to Japan in 1993, at the age of 17. [14]
In September 2020 Emma was named as one of the 10 Most Powerful People in Port Lincoln. [15]
Emma and David share a daughter Zoe who was born in 2015.
Emma Forster's father Ron Forster is fisherman, [16] land developer and charter business owner. [17] With Rolf Czabayski, Forster founded the Port Lincoln Tuna Classic fishing competition, originally known as "The Shootout" in 2005. [16] In 2006 he purchased Calypso Star Charters. The company offers tourists shark cage diving with Great white sharks and swimming with Australian sea-lions out of Port Lincoln. [18] In 2007, Forster set a Game Fishing Association of Australia record for the largest samson fish caught by a male fisherman. The fish weighed 25 kilograms and as of 2015 the record remains unbroken. [19] He is a member of the Game Fishing Club of South Australia and owns a boat called Long Shot. [20]
Circa 2007, Forster began planning a major residential and holiday land development project called Sleaford Cove. [21] The proposal covers 200 hectares overlooking Sleaford Bay and comprises approximately 350 housing allotments and 50 holiday units. In 2013 community concerns were raised regarding the Sleaford Cove project's potential environmental impacts. [22] In 2014 Ron Forster was awarded at the South Australian tourism awards for "outstanding achievement by an individual". [23] [17] As of 2015, Ron Forster is involved in the sale of land at Point Boston. [24] Forster was involved in the development of the Lincoln Cove marina in the 1990s. [25] Forster's land development company Sea Marine Holdings Pty. Ltd. was established in 1992. His wife Janet Forster is a fellow director and company secretary. [26]
In 2019, Ron was awarded an Order of Australia medal for his contribution to the fishing & tourism sectors.
Lincoln National Park is a protected area in the Australian state of South Australia located about 249 kilometres (155 mi) west of the state capital of Adelaide and about 9.5 kilometres (5.9 mi) south of the municipal seat of Port Lincoln. It consists of a mainland area on the Jussieu Peninsula on the south eastern tip of Eyre Peninsula and a number of nearby islands. The national park contains significant sites of natural, indigenous and early European heritage.
Spearfishing is fishing using handheld elongated, sharp-pointed tools such as a spear, gig, or harpoon, to impale the fish in the body. It was one of the earliest fishing techniques used by mankind, and has been deployed in artisanal fishing throughout the world for millennia. Early civilizations were familiar with the custom of spearing fish from rivers and streams using sharpened sticks.
Port Lincoln is a city on the Lower Eyre Peninsula in the Australian state of South Australia. Known as Galinyala by the traditional owners, the Barngarla people, it is situated on the shore of Boston Bay, which opens eastward into Spencer Gulf. It is the largest city in the West Coast region, and is located approximately 280 km (170 mi) from the state's capital city of Adelaide.
The yellowfin tuna is a species of tuna found in pelagic waters of tropical and subtropical oceans worldwide.
The Eyre Peninsula is a triangular peninsula in South Australia. It is bounded by the Spencer Gulf on the east, the Great Australian Bight on the west, and the Gawler Ranges to the north.
Granite Island, also known by the Ramindjeri people as Nulcoowarra, is a small island next to Victor Harbor, South Australia, about 80 km south of South Australia's capital city, Adelaide.
The Neptune Islands consist of two groups of islands located close to the entrance to Spencer Gulf in South Australia. They are well known as a venue for great white shark tourism.
Shark cage diving is underwater diving or snorkeling where the observer remains inside a protective cage designed to prevent sharks from making contact with the divers. Shark cage diving is used for scientific observation, underwater cinematography, and as a tourist activity. Sharks may be attracted to the vicinity of the cage by the use of bait, in a procedure known as chumming, which has attracted some controversy as it is claimed to potentially alter the natural behaviour of sharks in the vicinity of swimmers.
Tony Šantić is a noted Croatian Australian thoroughbred owner and Southern bluefin tuna farmer.
The 1992 cageless shark-diving expedition was the world's first recorded intentionally cageless dive with great white sharks, contributing to a change in public opinions about the supposed ferocity of these animals.
Michael Redding Pengilly is an Australian politician who is the mayor of Kangaroo Island. He formerly represented the South Australian House of Assembly seat of Finniss from the 2006 election to 2018, representing the Liberal Party.
The southern bluefin tuna is a tuna of the family Scombridae found in open southern Hemisphere waters of all the world's oceans mainly between 30°S and 50°S, to nearly 60°S. At up to 2.5 metres and weighing up to 260 kilograms (570 lb), it is among the larger bony fishes.
Venus Bay is a small tourist and fishing town sited on the bay of the same name, on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia. The town population numbers in the twenties for most of the year, but its numbers greatly increase during the summer holidays. At the 2006 census, Venus Bay had a population of 139. The town also serves professional fishermen who fish the Southern Ocean.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to sharks:
Fishing is important to the national economy of Vanuatu. It is the main source of income for many in the islands and Vanuatu's biggest export. According to 2009 figures, approximately 77% of households in Vanuatu are involved in fishing activity. According to 2005 figures, Vanuatu caught 151,080 fish in that year, with frozen fish accounted for half of Vanuatu's commodity exports.
A total of 24 people have been killed by sharks in South Australian waters since the establishment of the colony in 1836. Prior to 2014, there had been 82 recorded shark attacks in South Australia. 20 of those have involved a single fatality. Victims were involved in a range of aquatic activities, including surfing, diving, spear-fishing, snorkeling, boating and swimming. Six of the fatalities occurred off the coast of greater metropolitan Adelaide, with the remainder distributed across South Australia's extensive coastline. Many of the fatal attacks have been attributed to great white sharks.
Dr Hagen Heinz Stehr AO is a German-born multi-millionaire businessman, tuna fisherman and founder of the Stehr Group.
Tuna Wranglers (2007) is a documentary film produced by the makers of Deadliest Catch. It follows the exploits of the southern bluefin tuna industry in South Australia as it captures wild fish and transports them to grow-out pens where the fish are fattened up for sale to the Japanese market. It features footage of fishermen diving into tuna pens to wrestle sharks in order to protect their multimillion-dollar stock. The film was directed and produced by Mark Strickson for television and has also been released on DVD in several regions. Critics of the film noted the omission of the southern bluefin tuna's conservation status and the incongruous casting of an American narrator given the exclusively Australian cast and story. The film was produced by NHNZ for the Discovery Channel. A year after its release, the film was acknowledged by the southern bluefin tuna industry as having helped raise its public profile and boosted related tourism activity in the town of Port Lincoln.
Oceanic Victor is an Australian privately owned company which runs marine tourism facilities on and adjacent to Granite Island, Encounter Bay, South Australia. The company's main attraction is a floating at-sea aquarium containing Southern blue fin tuna and other marine species. The facility is located within a Habitat Protection Zone of the Encounter Marine Park and opened to the public on 2 September 2017. Since 2019 it has been open intermittently while work has been undertaken on the causeway to Granite Island and owing to COVID19 restrictions in 2020. As of 2021, the attraction is in Port Lincoln where it is undergoing maintenance. It is expected to reopen in 2022 once work on the causeway is complete.
Fish farming is a major economic contributor to South Australia's seafood sector. The most valuable species is the Southern bluefin tuna, which is caught in the wild then transferred into sea cages in southern Spencer Gulf where they are fed locally caught sardines. The second most valuable species is the Yellowtail kingfish, which is farmed near Port Lincoln and Arno Bay. A tourist venture called Oceanic Victor located in Encounter Bay allows paying customers the opportunity to swim in a sea cage with the Southern bluefin tuna and handfeed the fish. Prominent companies in the fish farming sector in South Australia include Clean Seas and Tony's Tuna International.