Shark Stories
damn.. poor bloke, tiny community, that'll be horrible for all.
(congrats on the house @o-s, and now I know what a manu off a jetty is)
udo wrote:https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-24/largest-great-white-shark-caught-...
Now that was a monster . Do they have any method for catching bull sharks in the Gold Coast canals ?
https://m.
jeepers, what's the deal with this tiger ambush near-decapitation? (seems @sharkgirlmadison posted it on insta, if that's a thing), I've just seen this:
https://www.surfer.com/news/near-fatal-shark-attack-caught-on-film
Here's the insta post: (repost?)
cheers @icandig, wearing a 'brightly colored novelty hood', wowzers..
Mandurah wedge cam 5am today plus 27 minutes, definite splash as young guy gets bit
^ that's surely not zac hlaing's attack from today? if you keep watching from +27 mins, there, till +28:40, there's finny action aplenty culminating in whatever jumps clear of the water, dudes paddle back out, assume they decided it was dolphins..
Yes, watch after 5:30 they paddle around onto the beach and limp off, dolphin fins popping up everywhere
frick.. there's some food in them thar waters!
https://www.news.com.au/national/western-australia/surfer-describes-how-...
Looks like it was caught on the Mandurah Wedge camera, 5:00am replay, 27:09s. A big splash there, lots of dolphin activity before as well. There always is there though.
https://www.swellnet.com/surfcams/mandurah-wedge
Glad Zach is all good.
Glad he’s okay
Where’d the 3rd surfer go?
Looks close to shore. Must of been in pretty shallow water?
Looked like a booger and dry docked quickly. You'd think if it was a bit more serious they'd come in straight to the groyne, but the sets were hectic.
Craig wrote:https://www.news.com.au/national/western-australia/surfer-describes-how-...
Looks like it was caught on the Mandurah Wedge camera, 5:00am replay, 27:09s. A big splash there, lots of dolphin activity before as well. There always is there though.
https://www.swellnet.com/surfcams/mandurah-wedge
Glad Zach is all good.
That brought back memories of the shark attack on the greenmount cam a few years ago. That one was heavy viewing.
The splash as he was bit looked to come from the shoreside. The shark may have chased something into that corner then turned to leave and found 3 humans in the way. Could of been just a bad tempered bull shark chasing bait fish. The decision to paddle out and around may have been due to the injury ruling out a rock climb. Hairy paddle with dolphin fins popping up directly in front while bleeding.
Everyone is a winner here.
Check tonight's news Shark chomping on Croc Vid...
Let the crew get their teeth into that one...(No spoiler...)
Heart in the mouth stuff. This guy played it cool.
A solid source is reporting an attack at Granites, South Oz today. Thoughts are with the victim, family and friends
Wow. Really. I saw Jeff reporting an aggressive white during the day.
Shit. Just heard. Very very heavy. As Andrew said condolences to the friends, family and all affected :(
.
..that doesn't sound good fellas.. not again...?
Yeah true granites it happened, a mates son , sad to say
ah jesus fuggit... sorry clam.
Not good, thoughts with all involved and connected. Met some cool crew from streaky on way to G Land one year, thoughts with them and whole community.
Revelation 6:8
And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.
Same place as last year?
Yeah.
Terrible news. Condolences to family and friends.
https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/shark-hunter-predicts-more-attacks-ng-ya-...
Mr Ostle is adamant white sharks should never have been afforded protection.
The evidence to justify the decision was flimsy at best and, in any case, stocks had recovered and the hunting ban should be overturned.
If nothing changed, he said there was an unacceptable risk more people would be attacked.
SR posted this in the shark attack story thread:
"There was a study done in West Oz a few years ago to try to calculate the Western Pointer population which also incorporates the ones that head to SA in summer. (distinct populations separate to each other on East and West Coast).
They ran a heap of calculations based on empirical fishing bycatch from as far back as 1939 combined with current known data. Obviously plenty of flaws could be found but after running numerous hundreds of data set possibilities based on the above calculations, the eventual conclusion was that Pointer numbers are increasing between 2 and 6 percent per year.
Make of that what you will. Significant? Maybe, when combined with an ever growing human population using the water.
I'd post the link to the study here but it's locked behind academic walls unfortunately. Not sure why this stuff isn't put out into the public.
Also, i noted someone above, maybe @simba posed the question about it being a repeat offender, and i for one certainly subscribe to a similar theory. Thinking about the clusters of attacks over the past couple of decades....Ballina, Margs, Perth Esperance and now Streaky, it's hard not to draw conclusions that there may be one particularly aggressive pointer at each of those locations that has identified it as a place for repeated visitations."
Generally agree, over the last 10 years we've had this debate almost every time an attack occurs and is reported in Swellnet's news section. The number I recall was a growth rate of 4% so that fits between your estimates well.
The landmark genetic GWS study was published and estimated East and West coast population sizes, was it about 1200 adults on the East coast and double on the west, or more? Many more juveniles than adults, with a much higher level of statistical uncertainty on just how many juveniles there are. (Anyone got the link?)
I have talked anecdotally to the people doing the tagging, and it is the juvenile survival rate % that makes it difficult to estimate the total GWS population. If the population growth is 4% per year a couple of things:
1) This is a strong rate of growth, with strong implications if the survival rate of juveniles is a large percentile. 4% of annual growth over a decade makes a completely different ecosystem before long, and
2) Do we see evidence that the fecundity being higher than we thought leads to juvenile GWS displacing other species in the inshore ecosystem? Eating so much/eating all of them, so the ecosystem changes? If so, we are creating a problem, by artificially picking a "winner" through protecting the GWS. These forums have presented anecdotal evidence of juvenile GWS displacing other species of sharks, reportedly from long term divers.
I also recall FR going through other species data and these are recovering across the board when whales and seals are also considered. Is it true of species like Pink Snapper - or other species that are regularly fished? Are they recovering? Fish 'deserts' existing anywhere there are large human populations/lots of charters would tend to suggest overfishing of dinner plate species is also occurring at the same time the top end of the food pyramid is protected. Is this true?
cheers, @southern, and on ya @vj, better place for these largely rhetorical and circular chats.
jeff calling for tagging rather than cull.. tagging would leave one less unanswered question about the recent attack, if the shark suspected of killing Tod had been tagged at least..
Cheers VJ and @base.
Here's the link to the East coast studies VJ. I was also reaqquainting myslef with this this morning...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-20593-w.pdf
Yeah it's a super highly emotive topic, and understandably so.
My stance has always been live and let live. Their ocean, my playground. They have no choice to live there and eat.
Having said that, i have no kids of my own so could be considered a selfish c#nt for thinking that way, which i understand too. I'm personally comfortable with taking my chances and to be honest, it adds to the mystery and awe of the mighty ocean. I don't mind that i share that space with man eating monsters. It's shit, and it'd be a terrifying way to go, but it adds to the thrill and addiction of the whole reason i paddle out in the first place. Submitting completely to nature.
I think there is an argument to be made forwhat are deemed and proven to be problem sharks being taken care of and i won't be throwing myself in front of any boats that are set out for that task. Again, live and let live, and if it is affecting others to the extent that this is a necessary measure in their eyes, i'm not one to stand in the way.
But i think there needs to be a good conversation, particularly amongst surfers without the emotion and with more facts than opinions.
Which is all it ever seems to be. Opinions.
Reading facebook comments (which is always a one way road to hell), it's amaziing how clueless some people who don't use the ocean are.
I saw a comment yesterday from someone in the states saying something along the lines of 'there's sharks everywhere in the ocean' in response to SA being a pointer hotspot. Laughable when you consider that over 90percent of the Atlantic is completely overfished and devoid of much sealife along the European and US coastlines.
South oz/WA have always been hotspots. The surfzones are unique in that they're normally deep drop offs, a fair distance from shore, easy for an ambush.
I'd like to think calm and reasoned discussion amongst surfers and fishermen, could at the very least help us all to collaborate and provide some kind of historical database of empirical data on shark movements in our own local areas, conditions and factors that were present during attacks/time of day/year..etc.
Without a word of a lie, the morning the attack happened i had a random thought that it was about this time of year that White Pointer sightings and attacks normally ramp up along the Eyre peninsula. And then i heard the news that evening and couldn't believe it. This is knowledge of White Pointer movements along the West Coast aqquired through observation over many years, yet something that is still pretty much unknown in the surfing community. You can almost nail it down to specific weeks of the year of where they'll most likely be (random attacks will always happen at random times but there is some easily observable patterns to be aware of).
The other thing is....if i have a big old fishing boat that's harvesting seafood out of the ocean, with all its smells, sounds and sights that are a bit of a beacon to sharks, the last place i'm putting that boat is right near a popular surf zone in a 'notorious' white pointer hot spot where surfers are visible from the boat in the middle of the school holidays, January 2nd, busiest time of the year. These discussions MUST be had also, uncomfortable as they are.
There's no blame to be laid. Just lessons to be learnt and to adjust our own behaviours accordingly because we're continually learning about these mysterious creatures.
Cheers.
Don't worry about facegram opinions from the US, SR. Their woods are full of grizzlies, chupacabras, cougars, mountain lions and Area 51s. And sasquatches. I prefer all the snakes and spiders, any day. In Australia, it's the oceans with the big carnivorous animals.
And yes the Atlantic is fished out. When the Grand Banks of Newfoundland were first fished, the cod were 6ft long and they couldn't put an oar in without hitting one. Time Dwarfism from overfishing leads to much smaller sizes today.
Re: fishing boats, there was controversy in WA during some of the attacks down south with the boats 'bait bombing' areas, and then attack would occur within 2 weeks of it stopping - anecdotal memory. My own interaction over there occurred with a shark trailing the boat as it came into the bay.
A few interesting stories on shark attacks and near misses on the Shark Shield report so I thought I would start this thread. Don't want to trivialize the subject as people have had their lives taken or changed forever by what can happen. I thought it might serve as an educational purpose by hearing others experiences so we may all learn from them and hopefully avoid it happening to us.
One of them was a mate of mine named Hazey.
He had been surfing at Castles, a notoriously sharky wave in the bay at Cactus.
Several hundred metres offshore the wave breaks before reforming into Inside Castles making a long left with several sections. The wave has been the scene of several attacks and near misses over the years including the local known as "Sharkbait" who had been attacked more than once.
Gerry Lopez is another who came very close to being attacked out there and vowed to never surf Cactus again after his near miss.
Well Hazey was surfing out the back with another bloke named Steve when out of the blue he was launched into the air still on his board by a huge force from below.
A shark had rammed him with a direct hit straight up into the air! In a moment it was gone but soon returned to the stunned Hazey and started biting him and his board. Hazey instinctively put his arms out to protect himself but both his arms ended up in its mouth. As the jaws closed down his arms could have easily been severed, but several teeth on the sharks lower jaw had become dislodged and imbedded in the board leaving his upper arms with massive injuries, but the vital inner arms where major arteries run were not majorly damaged. This probably saved his life.
By this time Steve had reacted and in a rush of adrenalin and pure ballsy courage he threw himself onto the sharks back and started gouging at the sharks eyeballs, eventually feeling one pop and the shark departed.
Steve got the two surfboards together and got himself and Hazey on and started the long paddle to shore.
Then they were both thrown into the air as the shark rammed them a third time before disappearing again. They continued to make their way closer to shore and the shark nudged them again. Steve told me he thought he really must of pissed it off when he popped its eye.
Finally they we're just a metre from shore when the shark made its fifth and final appearance. It beelined towards them and the shore while they stood in waist deep water with their boards. The sharks mouth was just rapidly opening and closing like one of those wind up sets of false teeth. The boys separated and put their hands on either side of it's body and held it on a 90 degree angle to the beach as they made the final steps to the safety of the sand.
Hazey was rushed to Ceduna hospital and then flown to Adelaide for micro surgery on his shredded arms.
Steve ended up receiving a bravery award and they both sold their story to 60 minutes and made $50,000 each out of it!
It was quite a story!