How many fatal shark attacks to stop you diving

[MXGratefulDiver]

... so how do they propose to keep other sharks from moving in? When a predator is removed from a food source, another predator invariably takes its place. Do they intend to kill them all?

Fear is a powerful motivator toward acts of sheer stupidity ... and often those acts do more harm than good ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Foxfish]

Wellllll.. more people Drown in the ocean than are taken by sharks (including swimmers, surfers, divers, snorklers, fishermen, boaters). That means the most dangerous thing in the ocean is the WATER! Perhaps we should bypass all the middlemen like sharks and remove all the WATER from the ocean.

By the way please folks don't put all of us Aussies in the same category .. some of us know better!

I presume that would be your response to the people of Reunion after the spate of recent shark attacks. Which is the kind of callous, fatalistic, Alice in Wonderland response you'd expect from a Greeny.

Quotes from [-]famous Greenies[/-] Alice in Wonderland:

Alice Kingsley: Do you think I've gone 'round the bend?

Charles Kingsleigh: I'm afraid so... you're mad. Bonkers. Off your head... but I'll tell you a secret... all of the best people are.

Alice Kingsley: This is impossible.

The Mad Hatter: Only if you believe it is.

Alice Kingsley: Sometimes I believe in as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

The Mad Hatter: That is an excellent practice.

 

[Malene]

How about at Reunion at the time of these attacks. Would you have considered it too dangerous to swim or surf in the area. If not, how many fatal attacks on surfers and swimmers would need to occur before you'd consider the risk unacceptably high.

The accidents that happened in La Réunion were in areas where there were signs forbidding to enter the water because of the risks of shark attacks. These areas have low visibility and some are near fish factories were the remains of what is not used is rejected in the water (sorry if my explanation is not clear, English is not my native language).

While I would not dive in these forbidden areas, I would still dive in La Reunion, no matter the number of people attacked.

 

[azza2012]

Can you work out the % of attacks in wa in relation to the amount of people and time in water over past few years? Pretty sure the chance of you being attacked will have gone down significantly over the past few years. Yes the number of attacks has gone up but with the cause of that being significant increases in populations each year I'd be betting the % odds of you as an individual being the one attacked would have gone down significantly.

Now we have the risk possibility sorted can we move to more significant issues of trying to deal with cane toads. They are a plague and your time is better spent sorting them out since they are introduced and ruin ecosystems.

 

[bowlofpetunias]

I presume that would be your response to the people of Reunion after the spate of recent shark attacks. Which is the kind of callous, fatalistic, Alice in Wonderland response you'd expect from a Greeny.

Quotes from [-]famous Greenies[/-] Alice in WonderlandAlice Kingsley: Do you think I've gone 'round the bend?

Charles Kingsleigh: I'm afraid so... you're mad. Bonkers. Off your head... but I'll tell you a secret... all of the best people are. :

Shucks Foxfish :blush: using the selective quotation/interpretation practices that seem to be the trend in this thread.... I truly am honoured by your esteem!::

 

[Foxfish]

Shucks Foxfish :blush: using the selective quotation/interpretation practices that seem to be the trend in this thread.... I truly am honoured by your esteem!::

Glad you found it complimentary - and a little funny.

 

[drbill]

and didn't think I'd need to repeat the same again.

REALLY? Then why do you... over and over and over... ad nauseum.

If you are "talking" to divers (or more accurately talking at them), why do you continue to inject example involving non divers? Totally different situations.

And please stop referring to these sharks as "man-eating." While the majority of attacks by great whites (93%) are on males, they rarely consume the victim. Usually it is a test bite then a release. Yes, that can be fatal, but they do not EAT the victim.

 

[KevWind]

I'm avoiding getting involved in debates on culling and other ways to mitigate the risk on this thread. The intent here was simply to note that the local community had reached the limit of what they accepted to be an acceptable level of risk and took steps to mitigate the risk. In this case the statistics were five fatalities in the period from the start of 2011 to July 2013 and thirteen attacks for the corresponding period.

Lets clarify it was specifically the local politicians that "took steps" not the glittering generality of the "local community" . That politicians '"took steps" on an island where tourism is a significant if not primary source of the GPD in which surfing and swimming related tourism represents significant income, is not really the least bit surprising. Not to mention the fact that story was headline news in surfing magazines forums and blogs world wide. Nor is it necessarily an exemplary model of "community" decision making. Certainly suspect as much or more of an example of politicians yet again making monetary based decisions, as opposed to wise environmental or arguably even all that public safety driven decisions.

 

[nimoh]

Having said that, one of the articles did note that divers who entered the region where a surfer was recently taken feared for their lives because of the presence of sharks. A simple explanation for the lack of attacks on divers would be that there were far fewer divers than surfers and few divers entered the surf break where most of the attacks occurred.

Another simple explanation is that sharks generally don't attack divers.

 

[KevWind]

REALLY? Then why do you... over and over and over... ad nauseum.

If you are "talking" to divers (or more accurately talking at them), why do you continue to inject example involving non divers? Totally different situations.

And please stop referring to these sharks as "man-eating." While the majority of attacks by great whites (93%) are on males, they rarely consume the victim. Usually it is a test bite then a release. Yes, that can be fatal, but they do not EAT the victim.

Bill, first let me congratulate you on showing remarkable restraint in your posts to this thread, given the level of intractable perspective and posturing being proffered.

But considering such posturing, it may be futile to inject simple common sense and a request for more objectivity and less sensationalism. It may well be that the rest of us will have to continue auto interpret ,"Man- Eating" as Apex predators that occasionally bite humans, and "Greeny" as anyone that actually gives a rats ass, about the environment.