Why can't they just SWIM like a normal sea creature? It's bringing down the reputation of all the harmless species with all this "lurking".

Dont worry the pc police are onto it.

The words "shark attack" are to be removed from our language as it confers an intention on the shark that is unfair to it.

Likewise any one who draws sharks with sharp angles for kiddy books gets re educated by the same. They are to be drawn round and cuddly or else.

You can rest easy Chris the important stuff is well covered.

This report failed to mention the 5,000 dogs Lurking in local residents yards, all of them statistically more likely to Attack than the shark

The media at it again .................. "swimming" sharks don't sell advertising space Chris

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psychojoe said..
This report failed to mention the 5,000 dogs Lurking in local residents yards, all of them statistically more likely to Attack than the shark

Ha go back to maths class mate.

I've been reading the book you recommended Bara .................... and it astounds me, that given the value to the economy tourism (both domestic and international) presents; and the potential impact to this revenue that shark interactions presents; the government spends eff all in relative terms on trying to understand how the buggers think. It's easier to bang some nets and drum lines in and everyone thinks its under control

When I was out on my morning SUP around the bay I was concerned to see a pod of dolphins..... 2 of them appeared to be lurking.

Could this be the beginning of the end?

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Chris_M said..
When I was out on my morning SUP around the bay I was concerned to see a pod of dolphins..... 2 of them appeared to be lurking.

Could this be the beginning of the end?

Were the others in the pod not lurking ?
I bet the two that were lurking were teenagers .
How can one tell the difference between lurking and non lurking dolphins ?

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Paddles B'mere said..
I've been reading the book you recommended Bara .................... and it astounds me, that given the value to the economy tourism (both domestic and international) presents; and the potential impact to this revenue that shark interactions presents; the government spends eff all in relative terms on trying to understand how the buggers think. It's easier to bang some nets and drum lines in and everyone thinks its under control

yeah been like that for more than a century now eh. the money is spent on quick fix knee jerk reactions like the daily (in school holidays) shark spotting chopper we get in the south west capes now. Far more expensive than a few nets and far far less effective but thats politics.

i felt safer on my new years day surf when a pod of dolphins showed up and lurked around than when the chopper flew over for 30 secs.

WA spends millions marketing our beaches to tourists but another attack (sorry accident) and we will be pariahs again.

Young sharks are called "pups". All kinds of puppies explore the world by mouthing and nipping. Sharks are just cute, wet puppies coming to say hello.

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Imax1 said..

Chris_M said..
When I was out on my morning SUP around the bay I was concerned to see a pod of dolphins..... 2 of them appeared to be lurking.

Could this be the beginning of the end?

Were the others in the pod not lurking ?
I bet the two that were lurking were teenagers .
How can one tell the difference between lurking and non lurking dolphins ?

Swimming slowly, menacingly and looking at me sideways AKA lurking

My partner and daughter had been surfing the morning of this sighting and haven't been keen to get back in the water since.
I was at orewa two days before during the afternoon and a life gaurd boat came to tell us of a shark that was spotted. A brief discussion with me asking was it just a small, as there are normally 1m long around in summertime. About a week before I was sup surfing my local beach and saw a small shark swimming back out from where I had just fallen off.
At that time there was no urgency to get us out of the water.
An update is that a 2.7m great white was caught in a net and brought onto the beach by the fishermen punched and kicked it. The newshub report also said the fishermen were intimidating any bystanders who told them to stop.
I don't endorse those actions but personally I feel safer that's there is one less great white in one of my surf beaches.

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Bara said..

psychojoe said..
This report failed to mention the 5,000 dogs Lurking in local residents yards, all of them statistically more likely to Attack than the shark

Ha go back to maths class mate.

The non fatal attacks number in the thousands
This article is about the fatal ones
www.vox.com/2014/7/8/5878881/shark-attacks-rising-comparison-dogs

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Chris_M said..
When I was out on my morning SUP around the bay I was concerned to see a pod of dolphins..... 2 of them appeared to be lurking.

Could this be the beginning of the end?

Dr. Karl reckons dolphins are just as deadly as sharks. He might be right, this report seems to think so.
www.nytimes.com/1999/07/06/health/evidence-puts-dolphins-in-new-light-as-killers.html

I'm a Seabreeze lurker.....
Although, I did see a nice size fish glide past Wategos today.

Only saw it cause I had polarized sunnies on.

I was afraid the guy riding a foil out there was going to slice sharky in two !!

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psychojoe said..

Bara said..

psychojoe said..
This report failed to mention the 5,000 dogs Lurking in local residents yards, all of them statistically more likely to Attack than the shark

Ha go back to maths class mate.

The non fatal attacks number in the thousands
This article is about the fatal ones
www.vox.com/2014/7/8/5878881/shark-attacks-rising-comparison-dogs

Like i said go learn the maths. For the probability of any given incident divide the number of incidents by the population undertaking a given activity. If you want to be more accurate then multiply by the frequency of engaging in said activity.

Heres a hint for ya. Not everyone swims in the ocean regularly so it might not be the entire population of the planet

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Bara said..

Heres a hint for ya. Not everyone swims in the ocean regularly so it might not be the entire population of the planet

Maybe not, but I've been amazed at how many folks are swimming each morning off the South Beach dog walking section. Even in mid-winter there's still a few! And the number of number plates you see around claiming to have swum to Rottnest solo!

What is it with WA that induces swimming? I rarely saw a swimmer off the east coast unless it was 35 degrees between the flags.

I have noticed that the SLS westpac chopper that reports shark activity for the sharksmart WA website rarely reports white sharks anymore. This change seemed to suddenly happen about 12 months ago.
They seem to identify other species but not white sharks. White sharks might come under the Unidentified Shark or they just don't see them

"Why are sharks such bastards?"

Maybe people just don't like the thought of being eaten alive by an apex predator ?

South Australian Abc news didn't even mention a man died getting eaten by a GWS in Esperance this afternoon. I guess that's not real newsworthy right now.

www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-05/shark-attack-reported-near-esperance-off-wa-south-east-coast/11842420

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Tonz said..
www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-05/shark-attack-reported-near-esperance-off-wa-south-east-coast/11842420

Yes that's on there web news however on the TVs who gives a toss. Fires , sport , done.

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Jolene said..
I have noticed that the SLS westpac chopper that reports shark activity for the sharksmart WA website rarely reports white sharks anymore. This change seemed to suddenly happen about 12 months ago.
They seem to identify other species but not white sharks. White sharks might come under the Unidentified Shark or they just don't see them

I think the reality is they simply are not seeing the Whites. Is they saw them they would most definitely report them, the more sharks they see, the more they report the more valid it makes for SLSWA to have the two choppers running around. So therefore more sighting, better chance at more funding. Personally i think they post too many silly reports or 1m bronzies and hammers and so people tend to become a little complacent.

But throughout fisheries their is some discussion as to why less GW sightings..Theirs even some theory that the tagging of them is actually killing them as most of the sharks that have been sighted, have not been tagged. Tagged sharks are getting hard to find apparently. Who knows..

As for esperance attack, RIP terrible loss for his family and friends.

NSW did a study on the effectiveness of their aerial spotting program a few years back. They used shark silhouettes anchored in 3 m of water as the test so pretty low bar. They only spotted 12% of them.

Re the latest " shark accident" its very sad. His wife will no doubt suffer from ptsd for a long time after witnessing it.

Apparently he was attacked almost as soon as he got in the water which means theres a good chance this fish may have been habituated to getting a free feed from the back of boats whether they be tourist cage diving or various scientific study boats

If it was tagged we would almost certainly know that for sure.

But instead we waste our money on an ineffective chopper and a designed to fail smart drum line program. We had 2 5m whites on a whale carcass off yallingup for days last week but fisheries never bothered to tag them. As far as I know they have only tagged 2 gw s since McClowan came to power so it's no surprise tagged ones are rare.

It's silly to maintain shark detection buoys if you remove the funding for shark tagging.

I like the alert system implemented by Dorsal. I find the app useful and often have had warnings as i enter the water. The issue is Dorsal is a private business and must then rely on info from SLSWA twitter feed.

Now in this case i again was upset to hear reports of a large great white reported in the area of Cull rock that day. Yet i saw no reports. Until i checked with the Sharksmart page, still nothing but on the SLSWA twitter feed i was surprised to see a report. That at 9.39 that same morning a large great white sharks had been reported at Cull rock. The issue was it was tweeted until 1.08, after the attack. Now the question needs to be asked what time did SLSWA/Water police receive that information?

First photo of the tweet, second of someone else i found asking the same question

Thoughts on the following.

Here on the Gold Coast the recently completed artificial Palm Beach reef has become home to large numbers of fish which has attracted a 4 meter great white. A few surfers have seen it and it has been photographed just meters away from surfers the other day. Our state government is deploying drum lines on the reef. Dammed if you do dammed if you don't. What a public outcry it would be if a surfer was to be attacked by this shark.Over to you?

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Chris_M said..
Why can't they just SWIM like a normal sea creature? It's bringing down the reputation of all the harmless species with all this "lurking".

Gotta Eat ! And not scrummy toast either!
Hard time with creature attitudes ?