Close call for local Rockit-man Rowan Curtis

Kill the jellyfish...

www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-25/broome-cable-beach-closed-after-irukandji-jellyfish-sting/9696102

^^^ spot on

Ian K said..

ThinkaBowtit said..

When their numbers were dramatically decreased there were bugger all shark attacks

You're just guessing that they've increased.

Scientists are getting quite clever at estimating adult populations by sampling the dna of the juvenile sharks. They don't have to sight even one adult GWS to do this. Scientific indicators are that adult numbers have been stable since protection began late 1990s. You've got to look for other reasons. There's probably a few factors influencing the rate of attack. Man hours in the water is one. Take wetsuit technology back to the 1990s and the probability of an attack will decrease a little. ( that's if you don't think the probability of attack, while taking the reasonable precautions mentioned above, is low enough as it is. )


www.csiro.au/en/News/News-releases/2018/Putting-a-number-on-white-shark-populations
"Adult populations for both the eastern and southern-western populations were estimated to have been stable since the onset of white shark protection (at the end of the 1990s).

This is consistent with the long time it would take for the effects of the various control programs and levels of fishing that existed pre-protection (which focused mostly on juveniles) to flow through to the adult population."

Ok having read your last couple of posts I have to conclude that you are indeed a moron.

On your attempt at maths -

You are only at risk of falling off a horse if you ride horses dumb dumb.

And on your attempt at science -

"Now that we have a starting point, we can repeat the exercise over time and build a total population trend, to see whether the numbers are going up or down," Dr Hillary said.

or in dumb dumb - "we dont yet know if there are more sharks or less - we are just guessing for now"

Of actual relevance for the adults on this forum -

1. they estimate total east coast population as between 2900 and 12800. WOW! seem to remember only a few years ago scientists saying total white population was less than 3000 GLOBALLY. Doing research sure pays off.

2. They cant estimate the southern / western population as there hasnt been enough tagging (gee something we have been calling for for years!). If we use their roughly double the population of the east coat they use for adults then we get in the order of 20,000!

HOLY CRAP!!!!

Endangered??? i think not.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimation

dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/guess

How can you be sure it's a shark and not squid attack?

The basic reality of the human condition is that we alter and change our environment so that we can survive and prosper. This is how we have succeeded as a species.

All over the world animal populations are monitored and controlled. The idea that great whites should be exempt from this population control is simply preposterous. In Australia we are a vast majority of coastal people and the ocean is a huge part of our culture, lifestyle and economy. Saying we should not control the shark population is like saying to Canadians " the outdoors belong to the Bears and the wolves if you leave the towns and cities your going into their territory and should just accept the risks and do nothing about it"

The scientific truth is that they don't know how many great whites are out there. The evidence clearly shows that attacks and life threatening human and great white shark interactions have increased dramatically since they were made a protected species.

What i suggest would be a real and positive solution would be to open the GW up to a tags/ quota based fishing system similar to that which is used for hunting wild game in the US and Canada.

How it would work would be that the government would sell the rights to take a certain number of great whites to the general public/ businesses. The revenue generated from this would then be pumped back into shark/ marine research, shark mitigation and marine conservation. Each person/ business may have purchased one or more tags which would allow them to catch one or more great whites. There would need to be strict regulations in regards to fishing practices and locations etc. Also all sharks that were caught and released would need to be tagged.

A system like this would create jobs, put money towards research, help to mitigate the shark problem and end up being the biggest shark research and tagging program ever.

The government shark cull that took place a few years ago was a total waste of taxpayers money and as we can clearly see did not work at all. By turning it to the private enterprises we would generate revenue, further research causes and actually get the fricken job done!!!

The great white shark takes 20 years to get to approx 3 metres, the same amount of time they have been protected for.
With protection at 25 years + there are plenty of 3-3.5metre great whites which is fantastic, the reason it's so good is that it's not until this size until they have the jaw strength to attack and eat mammals, seals, dolphins, people that sort of thing.
If you add to that the shark cage diving and feeding of an apex predator, familiarisation to humans, and rewarding them with food for biting cages full of people,,,, well it's a pretty fantastic situation we have on our hands.

Youngbreezy said..
Also in reply to gazuki, there was a guy bumped off his board at south point in gracetown about a week ago ( don't think he went to the media) so that makes 4 incidents in around 2 weeks.

Also has anyone noticed that from all reports the attacks/incidents are mostly with 3 to 4m white pointers. Would this mean that they are young/juvenile sharks? If we now seem to have a lot more young sharks out there testing the waters, coming in close and checking out people as a potential food source would this not back up the idea that there has been a huge increase in there numbers since they were made protected??

Also it seems as though the sharks tend to return to the same areas and these areas have recurring attacks, just take gracetown for example!! Would it not be a wise move then to target sharks in these areas in the hope that it would discourage them from coming to these places

stop it! your making far too much sense.

Per that csiro report that gets bandied around one of the most interesting lines while obvious was this -

"Sharks take 12-15 years to become mature adults, so we wouldn't expect to see the effect on the adult population of that reduction in juvenile shark mortality until the next few years."

So we are about to see an increase in large mature sharks in our waters over the next few years as the full effects of protection are seen. I reckon in a few years those close calls we have seen recently will be slam dunk fatalities as these sharks mature.

Its only gonna get worse unless action is taken.

DARTH said..

Bara said..

Youngbreezy said..
Also in reply to gazuki, there was a guy bumped off his board at south point in gracetown about a week ago ( don't think he went to the media) so that makes 4 incidents in around 2 weeks.

Also has anyone noticed that from all reports the attacks/incidents are mostly with 3 to 4m white pointers. Would this mean that they are young/juvenile sharks? If we now seem to have a lot more young sharks out there testing the waters, coming in close and checking out people as a potential food source would this not back up the idea that there has been a huge increase in there numbers since they were made protected??

Also it seems as though the sharks tend to return to the same areas and these areas have recurring attacks, just take gracetown for example!! Would it not be a wise move then to target sharks in these areas in the hope that it would discourage them from coming to these places

stop it! your making far too much sense.

Per that csiro report that gets bandied around one of the most interesting lines while obvious was this -

"Sharks take 12-15 years to become mature adults, so we wouldn't expect to see the effect on the adult population of that reduction in juvenile shark mortality until the next few years."

So we are about to see an increase in large mature sharks in our waters over the next few years as the full effects of protection are seen. I reckon in a few years those close calls we have seen recently will be slam dunk fatalities as these sharks mature.

Its only gonna get worse unless action is taken.

So where do you draw the line, you can't kill them all and even if you do cull a few problem ones how do you know that will stop the problem? It might for a week, month, year but the issue will still return. It's a big ocean...

never gonna stop the problem - its just a fact of life now

BUT

the increasing risk can be managed instead of the current do nothing approach.

Smart drums would be good to get some research on the size of the problem in WA. NSW has been able to get an estimate on their population since they did so much more tagging.

more alert stations to pick up the tagged sharks (currently none in the SW)

Catch and kill orders where there is imminent threat - this would have dealt with the one (s) hanging around gracetown and esperance. Tagged sharks that hang around can be removed.

Nets and drums work for specific areas - gracetown again would fit the bill. Realistically probably have to see a grommet or 2 killed before this comes back on the agenda but if we then have the research showing 30,000 odd fish off our coasts its gonna be a tough sell NOT to cull by then.

fund independent research in deterrents - individual and large scale

not stopping the heli patrols next month would be nice.

stopping cage diving in SA for tourism

reopen the shark fisheries as YB says above.

all in all we are talking about a pretty small amount of dollaros - less then we give to opera for example - but we would get some pretty good bang for buck and save lives.

I thought it was open discussion, not mouthing off.

On a positive note they are extending the helicopter patrols.

I think Barra has some good points, understanderbly it may be perceived as a rant however if the government implemented something similar as mentioned it is a happy medium and to be honest with the money spent thus far we have more questions than answers, whether you want to knock a few on the head (like me) or alternatively want to hug and pat every shark in the ocean ( like jb) you are not wrong.

But the facts are,
1) there has been a large increase in frequency and aggressiveness of attacks in last 10 years
2) anecdoteley there has been a huge increase in numbers of nteractions and sightings from all water users leading to a common belief that numbers have increased
3)people keep being eaten.
4) This is my own personal fun fact but it is probable and likely as great whites are habitual feeders that it is the same shark or sharks attacking people at the cowermup stretch. It will not stop until these two or three sharks are killed, it will occur every year and get worse at salmon season (now) and whale season (sept-nov)
As it is the same shark that eats people at Cottesloe every couple years.
5) I am going to go right out there and state that there is at least one great white in the ocean for every two humpback whales. (Apparently there is 80000 plus humpbacks at current worldwide) so at least minimum 40000 great white sharks worldwide, and that is being conservative, I truely believe numbers are more up around the 500000 worldwide, any one with any evidence contrary to that please show me......
I cannot believe that there are not drum lines off Cottesloe permanently, there should be 20-30 set hooksfrom injidup right through to red gate with chunks of the whale which washed up.
The humpback whale population is the healthiest it has been in a hundred years, the shark problem will get worse and worse until eventually we kill a few, unless of course we are happy to lose the Margaret river pro, millions in tourism (no one comes to wa to surf don't care how good the waves are when you can get ripped apart by a shark.

DARTH said..

saltiest1 said..
I thought it was open discussion, not mouthing off.

Repeating the same crap over and over is mouthing off.

Something you know all about.

kiterboy said..

DARTH said..

saltiest1 said..
I thought it was open discussion, not mouthing off.

Repeating the same crap over and over is mouthing off.

Something you know all about.

Only turns up in shark threads, get a life lol

DARTH said..

kiterboy said..

DARTH said..

saltiest1 said..
I thought it was open discussion, not mouthing off.

Repeating the same crap over and over is mouthing off.

Something you know all about.

Only turns up in shark threads, get a life lol

Interesting comment considering you spend a lot more time here than I do, Mr Mouthing-off.