Farallon shark dart

[Thalassamania]

I recently purchased a bunch of fishing stuff in an estate sale. In the box was a Farallon Shark Dart that must be for use in fending off sharks. You load in a CO2 cartridge and the sharp needle like point punctures the attacker and discharges the CO2. Sounds grisly. I have found very little info on these things on the web, except that they may now be illegal to use. Are they even illegal to own?

If you do not want it, especially if it is the "Magnum" model I'd love to have it in my collection to put with the sculpture in the story below. They are quite legal.

What you have is called a bang stick, I believe. I don't know about the legal implications, though. With sharks facing a very real risk of extinction in the not too far future, I'd say a bang stick definitely is a thing of the past. The point is that its use will kill the shark and there is hardly any excuse for that.

It is not a bang stick, and in a moment of crisis, with a little luck, can be quite efficacious: link to story.

I have since found some info on the subject. The shark dart does use CO2 to inject into the shark and disable or kill the animal. They were created for the Navy Seals as a silent way to kill an enemy diver and later adapted as a defense for divers against attacking sharks. They've stopped production some time back and are now prohibited in some states. Evidently the discharge of CO2 does little harm below a certain depth as the gas does not expand, but simply causes localize freezing of the immediate tissue and thus no bleeding. Still a grisly instrument that might look better in someone's trophy case than in their dive bag.

Navy Seals had nothing to do with it, neither did freezing. The needle injected carbon dioxide gas into the shark. This had two effects, the first was a change in buoyancy that floated the shark out of the immediate vicinity and rendered it unable to maneuver, the second effect took advantage of the fact that sharks have no fascia holding their organs in place so the gas (if injected in the belly aft of the fin) would turn the shark "inside out" and leave it chomping on the guts that were blown out of it's mouth. Grizzly? Yes. But effective and it saved my life.

Grisly is right. I remembering seeing footage of the shark dart in action some 30 years ago. Some hapless guinea 'shark" pig was baited in and the tester stuck it in the stomach area. It took a long time for the shark to die and the pressure from the cartridge forced some organ to come out of the mouth. Ick.

X

That's an accurate description, I do not favor hunting sharks or molesting them in any fashion unless there is no alternative. I simply want to point out that, in my experience (and that's once in well more than 10,000 dives) it works.

 

[Louie]

Grisly is right. I remembering seeing footage of the shark dart in action some 30 years ago. Some hapless guinea 'shark" pig was baited in and the tester stuck it in the stomach area. It took a long time for the shark to die and the pressure from the cartridge forced some organ to come out of the mouth. Ick.

X

So if you were to accidently stick your buddy with this contraption...urgh... Definitely doesn't belong on a dive. Best kept in the antiques museum.

 

[Walter]

So if you were to accidently stick your buddy with this contraption...urgh... Definitely doesn't belong on a dive. Best kept in the antiques museum.

It would be about as hard as accidentally sticking your buddy with your dive knife and, unless you had taken off the safety, have about the same results. With the safety on, it stabs, but doesn't inject CO₂. You are worried about nothing. While it's extremely unlikely you'll ever be the victim of a shark attack, that is much more likely than being blown up by a shark dart even assuming your buddy has one every time you dive.

 

[Puffer Fish]

Wow, a shark dart...yup, had one of both sizes. Also had a bang stick.

That was a long time ago, doing diving that is very different from what is done by most people today.

Did I carry them on every dive? No, only when it was obvious that they would be needed.

Would I own either one today? There is no reason, well except as a collector's item.

Have I used them.. yes, but only with cause.

 

[TTSupra]

There was a knife developed recently similar to this. CO2 in the handle, with a very small fine point at the end. Whenever you stabbed someone/something with it, the CO2 exploded out. Lots of videos of them on the web. A few demo's of them exploding watermelons with them also.

 

[james croft]

So if you were to accidently stick your buddy with this contraption...urgh... Definitely doesn't belong on a dive. Best kept in the antiques museum.

Actually they are pretty safe around other people, unlike it's more deadly cousin, the Farallon Lawn Dart.

 

[ScubaBasics]

pm sent

 

[Hoomi]

As I recall, one of these kinds of darts played a part in the 1975 movie, Shark's Treasure. The movie was pretty much a flop, and likely only managed to get much viewership by the shark theme riding the popularity of Jaws.

I remember seeing it way back when, and while much of the movie was easily forgotten, I do recall some U/W scenes where they were killing numbers of sharks, supposedly to safely get at the treasure. It's been a LONG time, but I believe they were using these darts to do the killing, and late in the movie, supposedly ended up using one against a particularly nasty escaped convict that was holding the main characters hostage.

Since at that time, shark preservation wasn't a real popular idea, I believe the footage they had was actual usage of these darts on sharks (cheaper back then to kill a few sharks, filmed from different angles, and creatively splice the footage to make it look like they're killing lots of sharks, than it is to pay someone to come up with special effects that simulate killing sharks). I don't recall any grisly inversions (which they may have omitted due to audience sensitivities), but if it's the sequence I remember, at least one of the sharks swam a tight, fast circle, much like you might expect from a stroke or seizure situation, before expiring.

Not an instant, pleasant death for an animal.

 

[drawde49]

I have a spare in my trunk I have never used and hope I never will. However, someone said, "Chance favors the prepared". Better to have the right equipment and never need it than to need it and not have it.

 

[drawde49]

If you do not want it, especially if it is the "Magnum" model I'd love to have it in my collection to put with the sculpture in the story below. They are quite legal.
It is not a bang stick, and in a moment of crisis, with a little luck, can be quite efficacious: link to story.
Navy Seals had nothing to do with it, neither did freezing. The needle injected carbon dioxide gas into the shark. This had two effects, the first was a change in buoyancy that floated the shark out of the immediate vicinity and rendered it unable to maneuver, the second effect took advantage of the fact that sharks have no fascia holding their organs in place so the gas (if injected in the belly aft of the fin) would turn the shark "inside out" and leave it chomping on the guts that were blown out of it's mouth. Grizzly? Yes. But effective and it saved my life.
That's an accurate description, I do not favor hunting sharks or molesting them in any fashion unless there is no alternative. I simply want to point out that, in my experience (and that's once in well more than 10,000 dives) it works.

Great story...neat sculpture. I'd much prefer to dine on the shark than the reverse!