Shark attack down on the south coast (Albany)

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barn said..
Ok maybe I should have waited 24 hours for everyone to come to grips with this new reality before I posted anything on the inherent dangers of the particular activity being conducted at the time of the interaction.

Reckon 24 hours is long enough?

#IllSwimWithYou

More like wait 24 hour till you pull your head out of your @rse, you're a disgrace.

Why has no one come up with hire a shark shield? Dial a shark shield? Or perhaps the government could just use the money they use for drum lining to buy every water user a shark shield?
Was this young lad wearing such a device while undertaking a risky sport fish? Do you go hang gliding with out a helmet? Motocross no helmet? Etc...
Culling will not work due to public outcrys so why not look at prevention.

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Toph said...

southace said..
Why has no one come up with hire a shark shield? Dial a shark shield? Or perhaps the government could just use the money they use for drum lining to buy every water user a shark shield?
Was this young lad wearing such a device while undertaking a risky sport fish? Do you go hang gliding with out a helmet? Motocross no helmet? Etc...
Culling will not work due to public outcrys so why not look at prevention.

The dive master wasn't impressed and told another bloke and myself to take them off or not get in the water with him.

That's worthy of a name and shame and possibly posting on a dive forum? I would think there probably wouldn't be a more appropriate time to use one? Wtf?

From what I have seen I would not get in southern waters for a extended period with out such a device same as I wouldn't go hang gliding or bike riding with out some head protection. Same as going swimming in the tropics without stinger suits. Same as using extreme caution when barra fishing not to clean the catch on the banks edge. To kill every shark that attacks a water user is a impossible mission and will never work.

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southace said..
Why has no one come up with hire a shark shield? Dial a shark shield? Or perhaps the government could just use the money they use for drum lining to buy every water user a shark shield?
Was this young lad wearing such a device while undertaking a risky sport fish? Do you go hang gliding with out a helmet? Motocross no helmet? Etc...
Culling will not work due to public outcrys so why not look at prevention.

Only yesterday morning i reminded a mate to were his shark shield whilst diving this time of year. Today he wore it and had a 9 foot Tiger swim past, this time of year seems to have loads of sightings and detections. The Christmas to New years week seems to be higher than usual , i wonder if that means more people in the water, more eyes

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barn said..
Ok maybe I should have waited 24 hours for everyone to come to grips with this new reality before I posted anything on the inherent dangers of the particular activity being conducted at the time of the interaction.

Reckon 24 hours is long enough?

#IllSwimWithYou

Wow, is there any line you won't cross? I've been away from these forums for a while, so I don't know if you're a troll or trying really badly to be funny. Poor form though.

I am a little confused and can't Find Tree Stripes Reef. Is this location correct? As i heard the lady son the radio saying the boys body was bought into Middleton beach

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Ian K said..

Toph said..

southace said..
Why has no one come up with hire a shark shield? Dial a shark shield? Or perhaps the government could just use the money they use for drum lining to buy every water user a shark shield?
Was this young lad wearing such a device while undertaking a risky sport fish? Do you go hang gliding with out a helmet? Motocross no helmet? Etc...
Culling will not work due to public outcrys so why not look at prevention.

Southace, there was a dive shop here in Perth that use to hire shark shields. From memory he had one maybe two between two stores. I asked him why so few and basically there didn't appear to be a market. I hired one off him once for a week when on a charter. It's cost me a little fortune. The dive master wasn't impressed and told another bloke and myself to take them off or not get in the water with him.

Of course the dive master wasn't impressed. You'd missed the whole point of skindiving. Being right amongst it is part of the thrill. A hundred years ago the British went big game hunting in Africa. If the lions posed no threat nobody would have bothered.

But I don't want to be that much "amongst" it. There is still plenty to see without getting close and personal with a noah. As a result, I don't own a shark shield, and I've made the choice not to dive in Perth metro or WA's southwest waters.

The reality is that we exploit and manage just about every living thing on the planet as far as possible. We seek to destroy harmful viruses, bacteria, insects. The manage domestic animals exclusively for our use. We kill many fish in the ocean including sharks for a multitude of reasons. Arguments that sharks are just doing what comes naturally dont get tabled when it comes to dealing with the Ebola virus. The problem when we use invalid analogies is that we lose sight of the fact that we dont understand enough about shark behaviour to make effective decisions, the technology currently in use, like tagging, could itself be an aggravating factor. There is a huge amount of data publicly available that is not dumbed down news reports but it appears that almost noone spends any time studying this to try and address to issues caused by ignorance.

The South Africans had a similar issue around 2005 similar to the one facing WA today. Following a spate of attacks between 2001-2004 they realised there was no single owner of the problem, which they fixed with input from relevant stakeholders and then implemented quite effective measures including the spotters. In WA there are Fisheries whose job is to protect fish, lifesaving whose job is to protect people, and government whose job it is to get re-elected, and the anti cull groups. No single body with any mandate exists to coordinate all involved parties, take a hard look at the science, the available and still limited knowledge on shark behavior and propose a way forward. It means that much time is wasted and facts obscured because of the infighting. South Africa largely addressed this around 10 years ago, WA might catchup and implement a similar body, but there is a lot of flaky and dangerous science involved, a lot of emotion and politics. The truth is usually the first casualty in scenarios like this. Here is the outcome, a lot of the primary research for this is also available. http://sharkspotters.org.za/facts/FindingaBalance.pdf