jbshack said...Razzonater said.. jbshack said... busterwa said..
Looks like they will open up commercial fishing. The the sea shiptards and all its tree hugging hippies can direct there attention something a bit more important ( like move to asia and stop shark finning). Great to see the leaders addressing the issue. Great to see some action.
Razz as you keep saying you were a commercial fisherman. Even a shark fisherman can you please explain to this baboon how Opening the Metro area to commercial shark fishing will help with attacks from Great whites
Especially as commercial shark fishing is not aloud to catch great whites, they only want smaller sharks, that don't attack people
I look forward to this response..
Commercial shark (net fishing we are referencing) will only kill one or two great whites a year in the metro area so realistically it will have negligible effect.
It can be said however that great whites will avoid netted areas if possible and also their is research that sharks don't like the smell of dead sharks, I'm 50/50 on that as I have seen quite a few dead sharks bitten in half, to be honest I don't really like shark net fishing as they always end up with high by catch of Demersel and turtle etc etc. even I the man who wants to knock a few great whites off will be open/honest about this
Yep thanks for that. So by killing of the metro fishing virtually they will take all their food away. What about the seals
I understand they are not their only food source, but what will they do
Barnet employed Bond university way back before drum line to do a study on effectiveness of shark nets and drum lines. They said drum lines would not work and that nets would, but only by first killing of all the other fish that the sharks eat.. I really cant imagine people wanting our coast fishing stocks getting wiped out so a few surfers can feel comfortable..Im a little sceptical taking away the food from the great whites also
Brave call..
I cant believe people are totting commercial fishing as a life saver..
Seals, tricky subject, you see the great white takes twenty years ( same time as they have been protected) to actually build enough jaw strength to eat a mammal, unfortunately due to this we now have a large portion of the 500000 great white sharks which are at this size, teenage boys full of testosterone who have enough strength to eat a mammal........ Same sharks that are seen cage diving in south oz...
With greater seal numbers ( numbers exploded) their will be higher numbers of whites especially where seals aggregate ( little island, penguin island, rottnest, jurien marine park islands, lancelin, wedge, the little islands along the south coast etc etc) these don't need culling nor do the whales.... I don't want to net the whole coast or put 2000 shark hooks in the water everyday..
Reducing the sharks food with shark nets will not help it will kill a couple of whites and lower the food in the area but the repercussions are far greater than the reward.
In regards to drum lines, I'm going to be blunt and honest, drum lines do work, they are proven to work and furthermore if set correctly and monitored have a high high success rate.
In a perfect world the policy would work like this...
Example 1 : 4 metre great white seen following whales 10 nautical miles off rottnest, action taken : none not required, healthy shark going about its activities
Example 2: 4.5 metre great white seen at Cottesloe 500 metres from beach. Action taken, deploy shark hooks ( they need to be bigger on chain not wire crimp and baited with whale,tuna, or seal this assists with by catch problems/concern) catch shark and kill.
Example 3: shark reported at wedge near shore swimming between island and beach, initial action mobilise to area, if shark is seen next day deploy drum lines and catch/kill.
Once a shark has hung around on consecutive days it is stalking food, timing and waiting. They do not hang in close to shore to say hello, as soon as these signs are seen it is deploy drum line catch and kill.
Drum lines used like this are super effective with limited by catch and affect to the environment.
Shark nets, you know of course they will work to a degree, but in comparison to specifically targeted big fish the right thing to do is drumline.
In regards to how do we get bait for the shark hooks, well if fisheries cut off a couple tonne of whale meat off the next dead one that washes up and whacks it in the freezer they should be ok for bait for a season or two
