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Bara said..
Echo the comments thanking Dave for the effort etc and yeah hope it gets picked up in the subsidy scheme as at least its WA product based on an attempt to help surfers deal with the growing threat rather than the competition that has become an asx listed company set up to milk the taxpayer of all it can. Theres now no end of hair brained schemes in its pipeline with an eye to the growing taxpayers dollars on offer.
Not standing for the killing of even an odd shark or 2 is sure gonna end up being expensive for us all and quite profitable for the rent seekers
My beef is that as Mick says this will potentially end up being the only partially effective mitigation effort this govt end up taking and at around the effectiveness of a toss of a coin chance for 15 minutes thats just not gonna be enough.
Aerial surveys are 12% effective at spotting decoy sharks let alone moving real life ones.
The shiny new shark alert towers are pretty much pointless since WA only managed to tag half a dozen gws this year
They were dragged kicking and screaming to the smart drum line trial and will look for the first chance to ditch it
Whale numbers are on the rise and with them large GWS numbers per the csiro report.
Its only gonna get worse.
That said its interesting that changing the frequency and upping the voltage seems to have given a similar result to the shark shield now so maybe more research on this will get us better than 50% protection for 15 minutes one day.
But only of there is rigour applied to these studies and theres some pretty big grains of salt in this one as it was only tested on 7 actual sharks and they were all male when previous studies have shown its the large females that tend to go straight through these fields. Its hardly a definitive study.
Would love to see some research into all the anecdotal evidence that these devices actually attract sharks from further away before repelling at 1m or less. Now that they are being actively encouraged for use by the govt its a public safety issue that this be looked at scientifically but it wont as that just muddies the water. Might make an interesting law suit one day.
Jesusgus i have to laugh mate you do know the version you sent your kid off to rotto with has been shown to have no effect on GWS at all right?
Thats why theres a version 2.
AN interesting post and i agree that the government need to do what they are doing better. For so many on here have taken the opposite approach to me but in reality all i've ever called for is "Better" Better use of our state funds, better effort into finding answers. Not just the political issue that sharks has become.
The points of interest as i still see them is
1) why are dead whales still being left on beaches, to rot.
2) why are the aerial patrols (even though as said above only have a 18% accuracy from chopper) not at least doing their job. Twice now i have had them hover over me, alert of a shark larger than 2.5m and they did not sound their alarm. Their are better cheaper options. Even a fixed wing has around 23% accuracy. But why not multi spec cameras?
3) why cant we get better signage. Beaches down south have been closed by rangers, and they didn't even bother to warn water users in the water to get out.
4) lets get the BEN beach numbering system going yesterday.
5) if we are going to run with barriers (safe swimming nets if you like) why are they allowing the operators who continue to break not replace or repair even. The system in Quinns is out and will be till next year. The Eco Barrier at Sorrento was repaired and fully operational with in 3 weeks of its damage, yet nothing from the Quinns net, and the Albany net is constantly broken.
These are rather simple issues.
Now why isn't the Rpela yet been added to the Subsidy list. That would bring the price to within a few hundred dollars.
Bara as for your comments, well the Version 1 does work, Dave has completed so much research over the time and lets also not forget their has been three times surfers have been charged whilst wearing one, only to have the shark repelled. The tweak to the V2 is small and actually from memory i think Dave once explained their is a slight difference between frequency and effectiveness against Bulls, Vs Great whites. (im not 100% on that one, is was some time ago,) But again id suggest anyone wanting those answers ring him directly.
Bara im curious as to a statement you made "
previous studies have shown its the large females that tend to go straight through these fields". Can you give us some idea were you found that information? I've questioned a few people in this field and they had no idea of that statement or how it can be clarified? Also just to clarify, the report talks about 7 sharks. It was actually undertaken over 2 separate trips, to a location that is wild and out their. Again There's a lot more info they have, this was the Report that was released as per the request of the state as the paper will actually be a few more months of at least.
Note(There's a lot of background politics going on in relation to sharks, and devices are certainly not immune. Dave has hang his proverbial nuts out there and produced the goods and still gets knocked. He is being hunted down by overseas countries governments chasing the product and is now starting to have a supply issue. If our State wants to play politics and stay in the dark, if surfers want to take advice from social media then that's up to them i guess. ) I have zero financial interest. I've always paid for all my products, except Dave did me a great deal on changing my son's board from the old system to the new one a few years back to the removable unit.A few more points of interest now im ranting. The SDL trial down south, that was told to myself and a group of 50 or so, by the Fisheries minister himself (Dave Kelly) its a band aid to shut up a few noisy locals and the Fed lib party. But what he hasn't shared with the state is that NSW still have not released any info from their SDL trial. Actually it turns out that only around 40% of any tagging programs Australia wide (including one on turtles), have ever had any data or research ever released because the information gained is so unreliable no research scientist will put their name to it. So why are we risking hanging bait so close to surfers this time, for votes? A contractor i have befriended from the SDL trial in NSW has confirmed that most of the sharks caught stayed in the local area, many were actually caught again. Leading them to believe they may have been more territorial than thought. But that info is not public friendly, so was kept quiet. Actually in the early days of their trial, they would tweet photos of their catches daily, until one day they stopped and all previous tweets were deleted. Many of those photos show the previous damage from the hook. One last point is, id like to see any marine biologist, research team who ever that draws any sort of reasonable income from a product, be forced to declare it. Too often these days im finding people aligned rather heavy, working to promote something, even to the point of trying to discredit a competitor when it turns out they are simply on the payroll..WA has gained zero ground on sharks in the last 5 years, in fact id say we are today in a worse spot. People like Dave who have done the hard yards selfishly need all the help and praise they can get from us, the general public. So please if you have any real questions ring, him, have a chat to him and get the answers straight, if you dislike it then feel free to discredit, but for uneducated comments to be shared, is criminal IMHO..
katana
> 9 months ago, 11 Dec 2018
