harrysurfer said..

kiterboy said..

So, the CSIRO may be doing good work, but it's completely hidden to us, the general public.

OCEARCH want to tag and make the data available to the general public.

So why does the CSIRO not want them here?

www.perthnow.com.au/news/wa/how-great-whites-trawl-our-coastlines-for-7000km-ng-fb9f5819a6810f984eff639e15234a3c

www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=ocearch%20bad&source=web&cd=7&ved=0CDoQFjAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.whitesharkvideo.com%2F4%2Fpost%2F2013%2F07%2Fthe-lies-chris-fischer-and-ocearch-tell-us-about-white-sharks.html&ei=PUWdUqOmI8OGkAWDiIG4BQ&usg=AFQjCNEthaNkl7YNXfLYCVoTNbQdl5DjtA&bvm=bv.57155469,d.dGI&cad=rjt
www.causes.com/v2actions/1737072-ask-caterpillar-to-reconsider-sponsorship-of-ocearch

My point exactly

Did many people know Paul Walker was a marine biologist (and surfer) who spent a lot of time with Ocearch (just a trivial side note thats all)

kiterboy said..



So why are we told we know very little about the GWs?

Some group wish to keep/ get more funding maybe?

Yep. The 20 found in that immediate area.

They are fish...we have to remember this very important fact. We are all okay with eating other species of fish, even vegetarians often count fish as something other than meat.

Maybe the problem here is the language - we need to introduce some fish management / we need to cull great whites...
Time for the cotton wool fellas, we need to modernise this debate.

Sound advice. The sort of stuff the media is telling us the last two shark victims might have said.

I don't get why you consider it knee jerk. Nothing has been done about it for a decade, other than sitting down with our knees under control and watching the news for the next victim. How long does it take before action is considered to be considered and not knee jerk?

We agree, more people will be taken. So you stop the killing when the killing stops. Or at least when it slows back down to what has been considered acceptable odds for the last very long time.

Has anything been said yet regarding the fatality in Coffs I thought i heard it was a tiger, but i think not that far south

We've not really heard much about it TBH.. (Not saying we should have but compared to Gracetown, but I'm curios as to why that is, and if the guys n the East get as much media when its a WA attack)

The kids in the water when it happened said it was an eight foot Tiger.

ThinkaBowtit said..
I don't get why you consider it knee jerk. Nothing has been done about it for a decade, other than sitting down with our knees under control and watching the news for the next victim. How long does it take before action is considered to be considered and not knee jerk?

We agree, more people will be taken. So you stop the killing when the killing stops. Or at least when it slows back down to what has been considered acceptable odds for the last very long time.

Knee jerk reaction? Now that's funny.
This was the term splashed around last year in the same discussion.
And here we are more than a year later having still done NOTHING, and the proposition that we finally do SOMETHING is considered a "knee jerk reaction".
Geeeez! How slow does a response have to be before it is not considered a knee jerk reaction?
The present rate of action makes a glacier look fast.

southace said..

kiterboy said..

Well that adds a heap of confusion to the subject...

They may have had a few fatalities, but looking at their website, they seem to have had a lot of success, and it seems to be the only place making the location data freely available.


Another thing, it's been said a lot here that very little is known about the GWs, but that link is making some interesting claims which would refute that completely, such as;

They know-
- where the GWs congregate
- where they give birth
- where they feed
- where they go and where they'll go next

And apparently this knowledge has been around long before Ocearch.

So why are we told we know very little about the GWs?

I'm not from WA but I can't help posting in this personalised WA thread.....just would like to ask the Question how many surfers and beach users do you think you have on the West coast? It would be great to get the stats. Has the surf been good? WaterTemperature? Lots of wildlife?

I've been wondering the same, thought by now someone may have had a guestimate on the numbers from the mid west to Esperance.

I watched a doco last night on foxtel discovery, shark week every show is related to sharks.
Anyway I was amazed to see so many points of view and a or proof/research.

One that stood out was an underwater torpedo that followed a great white that had just been tagged and this thing honed in on the gw.

For a few hours this shark just cruised up and down the coast and what I always feared at many times was less than a 100 meters from swimmers. The scientists that were following it were about to phone the lifeguards to clear the water but the shark showed absolutely no interest.

I think a lot of us have been surfing in the water and had a great white around without knowing it, I'd hate to know how many times but I'm now convinced it would have happen to each one of us more than once

A fisho years back told me that he believed gracetown was where the gws had their young and that the sharks come here year after year..

I read today that in wa they weren't sure of where the gws nursery was, I am convinced it is around gracetown, and if you were to cull sharks in that area you would be actually killing a whole ecosystem the gws one...

The attacks I think without researching in this area have been between August and January... This is probably the times to take precaution in the south west..

I am in Albany ATM and jeez it really looks and feels sharky, I have spoken to a few people and when the salmon are running there are lots of sharks around. Now this coastline is not surfed by many, and many waves and spots go unridden everyday. If the number of people which surf the south west we're to surf the south coast I'm sure the number of attacks would greatly increase...

To sum up our governments and or experts know a little more than they are letting out, there are tons of sharks out there and 99% of the time you will be safe, I believe though that most of us here have been within a hundred meters of a great white and never knew.

Some interesting points in this..

www.supportoursharks.com/en/News/Miscellaneous/Articles/20131129/How_Stop_Shark_Attacks.htm

I also thought this might interest people a little as to why our oceans are dwindling in stocks. HK$4500 fine for a catch that sells for HK$30000…

www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1369919/marine-activists-say-fines-breaching-trawling-ban-are-too-low

And lastly it seems we aren't the only ones having trouble. Hawaii as well with 2 fatalities recently..

www.cbsnews.com/news/kayaker-killed-by-shark-in-hawaii/

I just can't understand how anyone can say that the increase in incidents is purely down to the number of people using the water, of course there are more GWs, it is a simple conclusion to reach being that they are a protected species.

Even if some cultures still kill them, there's still a whole bunch more including us, that used to kill them, not killing them anymore.

Seems to be a self delusion to even suggest that GW numbers haven't gone up.

Even if the experts say that 'there is no evidence to show numbers have increased', well it goes both ways, and hence there is no evidence to show that they haven't increased.


Anyway...

GWs apparently have excellent vision, smell and hearing etc, so it makes me wonder why nothing has been developed to play on those senses as a deterrent.

Surely a device or wetsuit which emits an odor or other type of signal which tells the GW that 'this is really distasteful' could be made.

Nothing likes to eat something which it finds horrible tasting and learns to avoid eating it, there's plenty of examples in the marine animal world which inspiration could surely be taken from.

kiterboy said..

I just can't understand how anyone can say that the increase in incidents is purely down to the number of people using the water, of course there are more GWs, it is a simple conclusion to reach being that they are a protected species.

Even if some cultures still kill them, there's still a whole bunch more including us, that used to kill them, not killing them anymore.

Seems to be a self delusion to even suggest that GW numbers haven't gone up.

Even if the experts say that 'there is no evidence to show numbers have increased', well it goes both ways, and hence there is no evidence to show that they haven't increased.


Anyway...

GWs apparently have excellent vision, smell and hearing etc, so it makes me wonder why nothing has been developed to play on those senses as a deterrent.

Surely a device or wetsuit which emits an odor or other type of signal which tells the GW that 'this is really distasteful' could be made.

Nothing likes to eat something which it finds horrible tasting and learns to avoid eating it, there's plenty of examples in the marine animal world which inspiration could surely be taken from.

That gets me thinking. I have a pet lizzard at home (Bearded Dragon) and we feed it crickets etc. Few weeks ago I found a grasshpper and put it in the tank. He gets feed crickets alot and I thought the grasshopper would be ok. Didnt touch it and I couldnt work out why.

The hind legs of the grasshopper were bright red and this is the reason that the lizzard wouldnt touch it because red is bad in the lizzard world.
Red = poison.

So I wonder if there is a colour that sharks dont like?

WA71 said..

kiterboy said..

I just can't understand how anyone can say that the increase in incidents is purely down to the number of people using the water, of course there are more GWs, it is a simple conclusion to reach being that they are a protected species.

Even if some cultures still kill them, there's still a whole bunch more including us, that used to kill them, not killing them anymore.

Seems to be a self delusion to even suggest that GW numbers haven't gone up.

Even if the experts say that 'there is no evidence to show numbers have increased', well it goes both ways, and hence there is no evidence to show that they haven't increased.


Anyway...

GWs apparently have excellent vision, smell and hearing etc, so it makes me wonder why nothing has been developed to play on those senses as a deterrent.

Surely a device or wetsuit which emits an odor or other type of signal which tells the GW that 'this is really distasteful' could be made.

Nothing likes to eat something which it finds horrible tasting and learns to avoid eating it, there's plenty of examples in the marine animal world which inspiration could surely be taken from.

That gets me thinking. I have a pet lizzard at home (Bearded Dragon) and we feed it crickets etc. Few weeks ago I found a grasshpper and put it in the tank. He gets feed crickets alot and I thought the grasshopper would be ok. Didnt touch it and I couldnt work out why.

The hind legs of the grasshopper were bright red and this is the reason that the lizzard wouldnt touch it because red is bad in the lizzard world.
Red = poison.

So I wonder if there is a colour that sharks dont like?

Exactly, hopefully there's a GW equivalent.


What about maybe a shark shield device that instead of transmitting an electrical signal, broadcasts the sounds of orcas?
That could attract orcas though I spose ;)

It's cool, they're mammals, we're on the same team :D