Poor woman and the people that were with her. May she RIP
Lots of emotion, lots of passion and heaps of opinions, discussion with the crew i surf with sort 70/40 to managing sharks,70% saying dont, but i guess we see them a lot and people can get a bit complacent when you see them and they dont kill you?
Yes! What can Be Done? Something needs to happen. All excellent questions Nutdip and all worth considering and that’s exactly what the state government need to do, consider the “options”.
Now before the non-discript go on about shark hugging and environmentalist, greenie attacks because these some detail here you don’t like or don’t want to consider, or don’t want to consider, accept that this is coming from someone (Me) with a pretty solid back ground working with, training and an education in environmental science (particularly cetaceans) and my wife is a globally respected Marine Biologist who specialists in Orca (Killer Whales). OK that’s the disclaimer :) People will have opinions based on what they do or don't know, and i respect everyone's opinion until the slagging starts...then i just want stab those people in the jugular 100 times with a fork regardless of what side of the debate their on and id be doing my part managing the over population of the human species
Humans are a part of an ecosystem; we are animals, nothing more we have evolved as land animals. We are however animals that have an opposing thumb which has given us the capacity to make things, and those things have helped us hunt to survive and then as we have “Evolved” mentally to make mechanical devices so that we can move freely into other habitats that we by design can’t exist in naturally. We’re land animals — when we go in the water, everybody knows about it. The whole ecosystem responds, We need to recognize the ocean is this wild, dynamic ecosystem and when we enter into it, we’ve got to have a healthy respect for that environment.
So what can be Done? Well Colin would wipe out the sharks if he could, he wouldn’t hesitate to do that for you and god knows he has tried, the fact remains that he can’t. His hands are tied by , treaty , conventions, laws and all sorts of other things that are a political noose waiting to rip off his head if he tried.
Great Whites are a protected species. Technically they are classified as “Vulnerable” which is a sub classification of Endangered. Endangered has three categories put simply… ENDANGERED – Presumed going to be extinct soon THREATENED – Likely to be endangered soon VULNERABLE - This means that the population is not in a state where they could be considered a level that is remotely sustainable – this is where great Whites sit at the moment. It’s considered that there is a population of GW’s that are transient along the WA coast of about 750 +/-. Sounds like a lot but it’s not and certainly isn’t sustainable.
So if we look at that for a second and consider what some are calling sustainable fishing, well there isn’t an agency on the planet that believe that’s the case so with a little poetic license I’ll try and paint that picture. If we have 750 GW’s and the population of WA is 2.6 million and we all wanted to give them a fillet of GW …each shark would have to be cut into 3,466 bits, so you’re looking at something a lot smaller than a Fish Mc Nugget.
To make that population extinct in a 12 month period you would only have to catch 15 a week doing basic numbers but given cycles of life, breeding and factors you could half that and still see them extinct in less time, So in saying that what is sustainable fishing of GW’s? 1 per week?? Quite simple put, GW fishing at this stage is not sustainable but let’s just say one or two a week is a sustainable number and we allow that, do you think people will stop being killed as a result of Shark attacks? So, to truly make a difference you would have to cull them to extinction remove that risk and no one can die from a GW.
OK That’s done, Now imagine the natural predator of several species is taken out of the system and their populations explode, you can’t walk safely to the water’s edge without wrestling with seals and sea lions and and you can’t paddle through the schools of salmon in the surf. What if then Orcas start coming in closer exploring the options? Again this is being creative to paint the picture, but over time if not managed properly these are the types of things that can happen.
The reality is you get rid of one problem and you create another. To genuinely believe the reduction of the species will save lives is misguided and incorrect. As a rash generalization more than 20 people a year die in car or bike accidents as a result of hitting a tree in rural areas…but we don’t chop down the tree’s. I fact in Australia more than 400 people have died on our roads this year already and that’s something we have far more control over but seem less concerned about but any way I digress.
The fact remains that there are programs and processes that are available that are being used and are working in South Africa and other places around the world, the WA state government simply aren’t putting any effort into it. Those of you in NSW are fortunate as behind the scenes there’s a lot of consultation going on trying to come up with a solution, at least they are trying. We need to look at technology and systems to protect ocean users, ecological transformation will be ineffective people will still die, just from other species.
Yes something needs to be done, but we need to be careful about what that is.
trevor1
> 9 months ago, 5 Jun 2016
madness