Shark kills South African spear fisherman

[jepuskar]

LOL, he wasted no time removing that left hand..lol

Andy, sugar coating was the wrong word to use..my bad.

I think the majority of people know shark attacks are rare, that's exactly why they make the news. A few summers ago there seemed like an outbreak of shark attacks, when in fact the numbers that year were lower then previous years. The media does add to the ignorance...but all the original poster did was post the article..he/she didnt mention never wanting to go back in the water again...it's a news worthy story.
Darwin award? Probably not, unless they were sport fishing and not feeding the families. I mean come on, really, spear fishing in a great whites territory...must be for income.

 

[RonFrank]

it's not sugar-coating, it's perspective

simply because every single time a shark hurts someone makes the news,
the coverage obscures how rare deaths due to shark attack really are

of course, statistics don't matter when your son is killed by a shark,
but that wasn't my point. a lot more sons are killed by automobiles,
and those parents grieve just as much.

Comparing mortality rates of those killed by Sharks with those killed in Auto's is rather pointless. I'm sure if one compared mortality rates for those skin diving in Great White infested waterers while spear fishing the statistics would be rather different, but would still be rather pointless.

On the lighter side, I also belive that if sharks had newpapers, the mortality rate resulting in human interaction would be rather high. We are a rather dangerous lot, so to speak.

I also wonder if the new shark repelling gear could have helped this diver. Rather impossible to speculate.

 

[H2Andy]

Comparing mortality rates of those killed by Sharks with those killed in Auto's is rather pointless.

well... can you deny that a whole lot more people die every day in the US
as a result of car crashes (116) than are killed in a year by sharks (7)?

that is the point. shark deaths receive media coverage completely out of
proportion to their incidence rates.

or to put it another way:

how many things that kill less than 10 people a year have you seen in the news
lately?

 

[drbill]

The shark went after the fish most likely. Did it attack the spear fishermen or the fish themselves. If the fish were attached to the free divers on a short stringer, we can't tell whether it went after the fish or the divers first.

 

[UWSojourner]

You are actually more likely to be killed by a candy vending machine falling on you than you are by a shark attack.

Unless you're in the water, then I think the odds reverse. Just guessing.

 

[Ishie]

how many things that kill less than 10 people a year have you seen in the news
lately?

If it kills less than ten people a year, it's almost CERTAIN to be in the news.

It's the thousands that die of the other stuff they ignore, but anthrax, bird flu, mad cow, terrorism, serial killers, and the other stuff where your chances of getting nailed are extremely slim that makes the headline, along with lots of juicy (costly) "prevention" tips so you can wrap yourself in a secure safety bubble before dashing out to the store after a couple of brews and not bothering to buckle yourself in...

And if someone dies of getting eaten by something, really look out!!! That's international news.

I have to admit that spearfishing in landlord country makes me nervous, thus I bring my camera along so if the guys spearfishing around me get tagged and live, they'll have a cool film series to impress the chicks that goes along with the scars.

 

[clive francis]

Article about an underwater hunter on SCUBA offshore of Cape Town. You can figure out the rest.

http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=618012005

They estimate the length of the Great White at 20 feet!

this article said they were scuba divers, i thought you couldn't spear and scuba?

it also said police divers were looking for his body.......sod that for a game of soldiers!

 

[gfisher4792]

Here come the bounties: http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=226&id=623112005

 

[DiveGolfSki]

I have been on a shark feeding dive in Nassau and loved it. But your bear feeding comparison makes sense. It's not natural for sharks to get food that way, so somewhere down the line the ecosystem is being tweaked.

Just curious. If you which would you liked changed first: shark feeding or hunting sharks for fin soup or making swimmers feel safe? I'm not being sarcastic. This is a true thought.

I'm not completely familiar with the whole shark fin soup controversy other than to know it tastes great and is very expensive in Asian restaurants. Like any natural resource, the key word is sustainability. If fins are coming from sharks that are plentiful, why not harvest them (less for them to eat me ). Unfortunately, high prices can combine with greed to produce disastrous results. Rhinos are slaughtered not for their meat but for their horns, sharks for their fins.

As for the shark feeding, that unfortunately doesn't reduce the "herd" but actually inspires a whole pre-occupation with sharks by thrill seekers (can't they simply stick to dry land pursuits). The accident in S. Africa may be an unfortunate by-product of shark feeding/baiting. Though I don't think anyone has truly established a direct corollary between the two but artificially attracting GWS's into an area may not be the brightest think to do. Worse, spear fishing diving in an area frequented by GWS may not be smart either.

What priority do I prefer, obviously uncontrolled harvesting of sharks for their fins but both should not be encouraged. The BIGGEST problem I have is when PADI decides shark feeding is a good thing but that may be topic for another thread.

 

[DiveGolfSki]

South Africa diver swallowed whole by great white shark says witness
Powered by CDNN - CYBER DIVER News Network
by FRED BRIDGLAND

Has South Africa's cage diving industry made coastal waters and beaches unsafe for tourists and locals?

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (5 June 2005) -- A SCUBA diver was swallowed almost whole by a great white shark yesterday in a Jaws-style attack just offshore from Cape Town.

Conservationists are now expecting renewed calls for killer sharks to be hunted down following the death of medical student Henri Murray, 22 - the latest in a series of attacks. Great whites have been a protected species in South African waters since 1990, but calls for a cull have been growing following the deaths of several South African swimmers and surfers this year.

Two British surfers survived - although one needed 200 stitches to leg wounds and the other had to have 100 stitches to torn hips and buttocks. In yesterday's attack, Mr Murray's diving partner, 23-year-old Piet van Niekerk, shot the great white with his speargun in a desperate attempt to drive it away, but he did not see his friend again.

Dave Estment, a yachtsman, was sitting on the jetty at Simon's Town, near Cape Town, when he saw the great white breach the surface.

"It was incredibly fast. The two spear fishermen were not far from the beach. Suddenly a huge shark surged from under the water taking the one diver [from his legs upwards] to his arms in its jaws," he said.

"It must have been massive to have done that. Then the shark and the man just vanished." Other witnesses to the attack estimated the shark's length at 20 feet.


Diving too close to shark feeding areas? Shark attack victim Henri Murray.

Hundreds of onlookers lined the coastal road yesterday as a helicopter, police diver and boat search was carried out in an unsuccessful attempt to find the body of Mr Murray, who was studying at the University of Stellenbosch.

Divers from the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) recovered a weightbelt - so damaged that it looked as though it had been sliced through with a knife - a mask, a speargun, a rubber flipper and a buoy with speared fish that had been attached to a trailing line.

NSRI spokesman Craig Lambinon said he believed the shark could have been attracted by the fish. Great white shark tour operators, who lower visitors in cages among the great whites, use chopped-up fish to lure sharks to the cages.

Dr Cleeve Robertson, head of Cape Town's emergency services, said Mr Van Niekerk, a university friend of Mr Murray, was extremely traumatised by the attack.

He and members of Mr Murray's family were receiving counselling.

Dr Robertson said the spear, designed for smaller fish, was unlikely to have caused much damage to the great white.

Shark feeding blamed for shark attacks

Cage diving operators deny their shark feeding stunts have made South Africa's popular coastal waters unsafe for tourists and locals.

The recent spate of shark attacks off South Africa has provoked demands that officials shut down commercial cage diving operators who feed sharks to attract them to near-coastal waters for thrill seeking dive tourists.

With the support of the scuba diving and dive travel industries, cage diving operators deny their shark feeding stunts have made South Africa's popular tourism destinations unsafe for both locals and tourists.

Due to concerns about public safety and scientific studies that confirm fish feeding adversely effects marine wildlife, coastal resource management officials in the United States, the Maldives, the Cayman Islands, Egypt and many other popular diving destinations have banned all shark feeding and fish feeding activities.

According to the DEMA dive industry marketing group and PADI, a US-based company that sells diver certification cards, sports apparel and interactive shark feeding thrill dives, shark feeding is a multi-million dollar industry that "rebrands" sharks as cute, playful and friendly just like dolphin and orca aquarium shows.

The United Nations and leading international environmental groups such as the Humane Society and Wildaid condemn interactive shark feeding dives as harassment of marine wildlife and argue that divers and the public should be taught to respect sharks as predators, not cute circus animals exploited by scuba diving companies to perform for the amusement of thrill-seeking tourists.