Shark Stories
Ahhhh shit. Terrible news.
southernraw wrote:Ahhhh shit. Terrible news.
Those crystal clear waters attract people and sharks, they can see us easily.
Give me dark and murky waters any day. Condolences to all concerned. Can’t imagine what’d be like. AW
good article from beachgrit......
https://beachgrit.com/2025/03/surfer-scientist-relationship-teetering-on...
From the Grit :
Heard there were two others in the water and a girlfriend watching from the beach. Truly horrible. RIP, another victim, and condolences to all.
Fuck the gravy train scientists and ignoramuses. Hope the Fisheries Dept, and/or local fisho's, act immediately by catching and killing this shark. It won't be far away. Dreadful to think this could be the same old big creature repeating its opportune attack and feeding behaviour in this area.
Horrific incident in such a beautiful location.
RIP...
A GWS Encounter every time this Reef is Surfed
and Highly Probable a Loss of Human Life.
https://perthisok.com/explore/first-rocks-arrive-to-begin-construction-o...
This attack didn't even make the east coast news.
Nothing in the Guardian, ABC or SMH.
Sign of the times?
First item on the abc.net.au/news feed for me yesterday afternoon FR.
It's on The Age/SMH site today
That article from beachgrit is not good. The emotion behind it is completely understandable, especially on the back of such a horrific attack, but the idea that scientists are denying reality and want to hide that sharks eat people is click bait nonsense.
Obviously sharks attack people but to say that sharks "eat people" as though we are a regular part of their diet ignores reality. And for a scientist to declare that we are a part of their diet would be a major departure from the empirical evidence that beachgrit apparently values.
You can read any number of research papers analysing the gut contents of sharks. There is also the research using stable isotopes that shows what a shark has eaten in recent months and even over its lifetime. While they find mammals as a major source of the adult white shark diet, it's oceanic mammals, not humans.
From another angle, look at the estimates of adult white shark populations in Australia, estimated to be approximately 2200.
https://www.csiro.au/en/research/animals/marine-life/sharks/can-white-sh...
Here's an older paper, with an estimated feeding frequency of 11 days, so roughly 33 times per year: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep01471
So that would be 2210 x 33 = 72,930 individual feeding episodes of a white shark. I don't actually know how many white shark attacks there are per year in Australia, but even if it was as high as 10 that would be 0.013% of the feeding episodes. These are obviously shaky numbers but use whatever calculations you trust, with that many individual sharks feeding every week, it's a very very small number that feed on humans.
So for a scientist to say that they eat people as though it's a part of their diet is not likely to happen because it really doesn't seem to be the case. Despite the fact that they do occasionally attack and eat us.
I do think there's some research to be done about the frequency of attacks relative to encounters with surfers. I've never been attacked by a shark but I've encountered them at least four times, possibly 5 (it was murky), and there are two other times when I've just missed them (seen them swimming through the lineup just after getting out). I suspect most of us would have similar experiences and I reckon that would be an interesting bit of research to do.
Yep, noticed it posted on SMH an hr ago.
Went looking for it and found it on ABC.com.
Looks like it was buried quickly.
I think the point still stands: have we reached a point where fatal attacks from great whites are no longer mainstream news?
And Blowin's (Gila Kontol) Beachgrit story isn't an accurate representation of science but there is truth in his article.
Kontol Kecil more like it. (I miss Blowy/SweetDudeSweetDude)
Hope Blowin is still creeping around here somewhere
Oh wow that does explain it. Blowin always mistook his ability to string together an emotive sentence for critical thinking.
I genuinely don't see any truth in that article. It's a haze of emotional speculation and misrepresentations written to whip up a feisty response.
I wouldn’t take anything on BeachGrit seriously.
And well done spotting that that was Blowin.
freeride76 wrote:And Blowin's (Gila Kontol) Beachgrit story isn't an accurate representation of science but there is truth in his article.
Agree as there is sentiment that many would agree with. There will always be opposing views but the current conservative stance on one particular type of shark is not allowing objective conversations, IMO. And Benski your rough estimates even with a margin of error seem insignificant but they don’t hide the fact that a tiny proportion of any number where the risk of harm is death or serious injury requires consideration. We don’t blink when authorities react with assertive measures when the human/animal interaction involves for example, dingos on Fraser even when the harm is relatively minor.
Stu - that email I sent you, have you had a chance to go through it?
This article, published today, makes mention of Vic and Tas and I might have the answer to it.
https://beachgrit.com/2025/03/new-report-documents-773-increase-in-great...
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!