The risk of a shark attack when diving inshore waters of Western Australia

[Foxfish]

That is hardly surprising. From what I can gather, the people in the department providing the advice and recommendations on this matter are mostly scientists. As such, their status and remuneration is highly dependent on the amount and quality of their research. Naturally their focus will be on research rather than pragmatic ways to ensure the safety of the ocean going public safety. Couple that with greeny ideological values and public safety is going to take a back seat. No surprises there.

Given the risk to human life inherent in any increase in the white pointer population along our coast, you'd expect that the same level of 'scientific evidence' currently being demanded by Fisheries WA in assessing numbers of white pointers to have been applied at the time the white pointer was deemed vulnerable. I'd expect that evidence at the time would substantiate that:

- The numbers of white pointers along our coast were so low they are considered vulnerable;

- That numbers at the time were considered so low they posed a significant threat to the local marine environment and

- That there would not be a significant increase in risk to the safety of the ocean going public by protecting white pointers.

So where is all the scientific evidence used to substantiate the need to protect the white pointer and assess its impact on the environment and historic human values associated with the use of inshore waters?

The best that I can find is the following from 'The Australian Government Department of Environment'

Population status and trends
Despite a general scarcity of data on the white shark's population size and population trends, there appears to be an overall, long-term decline in abundance of white sharks in Australian and international waters. Evidence for this decline in Australia comes from game fishing records and the shark control programs run in New South Wales and Queensland. For example, the "New South Wales" shark control program caught a total of 151 white sharks in the 1950's as compared to only 44 in the 1990's. Similar declines are also evident in the Queensland progam.

Great White Shark (Carcharodon carcharias) - Marine Species Conservation in Australia and

Research into the distribution, biology and behaviour of the Great White Shark has been undertaken in Australia. Estimates of population size and nature has largely been based on analysis of game-fishing catch data, bycatch data and capture rates in beach shark nets. Study into Great White Shark populations is very difficult (Cailliet 1996) given the uncertainty about their movements, the uncertainty about rates of emigration and immigration from certain areas and the difficulty in estimating the rates of natural or fishing mortality. Accurate population assessments are not yet possible for any region (Bruce 2008). At the time of its nomination for listing as a protected species in 1996, it was proposed that the Australian population numbered less than 10 000 mature individuals (EA 1996). The population status in Australia, and globally, is, however, poorly known owing to a lack of robust abundance indicators. Quantitative stock assessments are not possible (Bruce 2008).

I don’t know of any studies done into the human safety risks associated with the decision to protect white pointers. My take of the decision was that it was largely driven by political considerations and global concerns about the reduction in shark populations along the same lines as happened with whales. Decisions were made based on the best evidence at the time and with some justification.

The point is that it is precisely the same kind of evidence which now strongly indicates that there has been a drastic increase in the numbers of white pointers off our coast. So how is it the yardstick of anecdotal evidence previously considered valid is now casually disregarded by Fisheries WA. The requirements put on evidence to get a species protected was and is very loose. The requirement to demonstrate that a species is no longer threatened is very demanding and restrictive. This hypocrisy again demonstrates the inherent bias of the government authorities.

Decisions of this nature are greatly impacted by the political mood at the time. The motivation in the past was the need to sensibly manage populations of animals being hunted for human use. The motivation now is that human intervention in the natural environment is an unwelcome intrusion and killing animals for human use is morally wrong. The support this kind of nutty greeny ideology has received from the authorities responsible for ensuring the safety of the public means that the public's safety is being compromised.

There are strong parallels between the current deaths due to white pointers and the Victorian bushfires that killed 173 people. Those deaths will forever stand as a testimony to the stupidity and devastating effects of greeny ideology. The greenies lobbied governments and councils and infiltrated their ranks. They effectively prevented the required back burning and clearing around residential areas.

This acceptance of greeny ideology by the authorities and scientists introduces significant bias when researching shark populations and in evaluating ways to mitigate the risk of an attack.

It highlights why anecdotal evidence I provided at the start of the thread is valid and why this indicates a heightened risk to divers.

---------- Post added February 18th, 2014 at 12:37 AM ----------

Does the duty of care extend to people who deliberately - by your own words - ignore warnings?

The practicalities of the warning system make it ineffective. The primary reason for the tagging program is to protect sharks, not humans!

It is unrealistic to expect people to stay our of the water as a way of mitigating the risk of an attack particularly now given the prevalence of man-eating sharks. You can see by the comments of others on the thread in this region that they will continue to enter the ocean regardless. Such is human nature.

---------- Post added February 18th, 2014 at 12:48 AM ----------

Waitaminute. This sounds strangely familiar:

"It was the stuff of nightmares. Mike Wescombe-Down was, at age 16, a carefree, water-loving youth, until his diving companion was mauled to death by a Great White Shark in the coastal waters of Australia. The trauma left him with a hatred of the notorious predators. But as he came to know and understand their ways better, this developed into a desire to find a technical solution that could prevent the recurrence of such horrors, while enabling swimmers and sharks to co-exist safely in the same waters."

Is your name Mike Wescombe-Down? Are you connected in any way with Seachange, manufacturer of the Sharkshield?

From here: PCT Portraits: Combating Hazards

No I am not. Further, I am not and have never been associated with any diving company or diving equipment manufacturer and receive no form of remuneration from them.

 

[PeterNBiddle]

I receive no form of remuneration from the company or any other company associated with this topic for that matter.

Sorry, I'm kind of dense. So you are denying that you are Mike Wescombe-Down?

Because according to this, Michael Wescombe-Down, designer of the shark shield, could also claim the same thing:

"Michael Wescombe-Down, who designed the Shark Shield but is no longer employed by the manufacturer after a disagreement over testing new products..."

Also please explain why we in America are able to do blithely tolerate the absolute horrors of land-based predators that actually come into people's yards to eat their pets and occasionally people themselves, with significantly higher fatality rates than all of your sharks combined, whilst you (in Australia) seem to be terrified by a fraction of that threat.

 

[Foxtrot16]

Where are you diving around Cockburn? Try the D9 September to November for a bit more action. I hear night diving is good for white pointers.

No one said I was speaking for everyone but you'd have to have your head buried in the sand not to have noticed the rising level of concern regarding the number of shark attacks in recent years.

Oh and I don't believe anyone who says they dive every weekend in Perth - unless they go down to a pool.

Again you make a comment which you have no evidence of - I dive every weekend in Cockburn Sound with a group of four other divers, every Sat and most Sundays (Need time away from the wife ) with camera in hand and GoPro as well and I still haven't got the image yet that I am after

And yes I saw the footage of the GWS at the D9 - big deal one piece of footage, what bout the other 364 days of the year??

It is sad that some people have been taken by sharks but culling them isn't the answer - there is a bigger problem that needs to be identified and solved - but the sad thing is that more people die from one punch (coward punches) or from assaults in Northbridge every year than from fatal shark attacks but we don't have the death penalty - why???

Today our Govt stated that they had killed 17 Tiger Sharks since the baiting of the drum lines began; however, the last fatal shark attack by a Tiger was back in the 1930!!!! so they aren't even responsible for the latest attacks!!!

Oh and no GWS were captured - why because the whale and salmon migrations have finished so they have left our waters!!

Karl

 

[Foxfish]

Sorry, I'm kind of dense. So you are denying that you are Mike Wescombe-Down?

Because according to this, Michael Wescombe-Down, designer of the shark shield, could also claim the same thing:

"Michael Wescombe-Down, who designed the Shark Shield but is no longer employed by the manufacturer after a disagreement over testing new products..."

I amended the statement. Are you from the FBI?

Also please explain why we in America are able to do blithely tolerate the absolute horrors of land-based predators that actually come into people's yards to eat their pets and occasionally people themselves, with significantly higher fatality rates than all of your sharks combined, whilst you (in Australia) seem to be terrified by a fraction of that threat.

I don't live in your country and don't profess to understand how wild animals that pose a threat to humans are controlled. Even if I did, it would be presumptuous to try to dictate how it should or shouldn't be done.

I could offer the observation that it sounds like you do feel threatened in the current situation and it seems you have good cause. That being the case I'd suggest the present controls are inadequate and need to be reviewed.

I understand guns are more freely available in your country and would have no problem arming myself adequately to deal with any threatening situations.

The question remains as to how you assess the risk of an attack in both situations and whether that level of risk is acceptable. In post #28 I suggested an imaginary situation that a person might find themselves in. I'd expect that most reasonable people in that situation would consider the risk of an attack to be excessively high. I'm suggesting that is not too dissimilar to a person in the ocean within a few kilometres of a white pointer and the risk of an attack in that case is excessive.

It is also not too dissimilar to the kind of risk that the present drum lines are trying to mitigate. In the past the government has identified that a man-eating shark seen in an area after an attack poses an unacceptably high risk to other swimmers in the area. People are told to leave the water and beaches are closed. Most people accept this as a reasonable precaution.

My only problem with this is that after a shark has eaten someone it is probably not going to be very hungry so the chance of an attack seems to be diminished compared to what it was prior to the attack. In other words, to be consistent, the beaches in an area should be closed and people ordered from the water whenever a man-eating shark is seen in an area. That is now happening.

This strategy of alerting the public and closing beaches could work if you had the following conditions:

- You had a way of detecting the presence of all man-eating sharks in an area;
- You had authorities present that could act quickly once a man-eating shark was detected;
- People in the water were compliant and got out of the water as required and
- This did not occur too frequently.

The problem on a lot of our local beaches is that these conditions often do not occur. In fact if you check the statistics most of the recent deaths occurred on beaches where these conditions were not present.

The problems start with detecting the presence of man-eating sharks. Having receivers that detect the presence of tagged sharks sounds good in theory but the reality is that they exist only in a relatively small area of our vast coastline. And they only detect the tagged sharks. I'd expect there would be many more untagged sharks.

Aerial surveillance is useful but again is limited in the area it can cover. In the case I mentioned regarding the OW students encounter with a white pointer, by the time the shark was spotted and a vessel deployed to notify the students of the presence of the shark it was too late. They had already seen the shark.

As noted above, it was not that long ago that only three large sharks were spotted while undertaking aerial surveillance in six years along our metropolitan coast. With that frequency of alerts, it is reasonable to expect that divers and swimmers would leave the water when the animal was known to be in an area. In the past I'd avoid diving the area. In recent years, we're seeing that number of animals being spotted within a period of a few weeks. I have checked the Surf Life Saving website prior to a dive on a number of occasions only to discover there has been a man-eating shark in the are in the past few days. I've then done the dive and seen the surveillance helicopter patrolling the area.

On one occasion I went home and discovered a person had been knocked off their board and a white pointer spotted in the area near where we were diving.

On another occasion I was on a dive charter boat at the time this man was killed and a only few kilometres away. We were ordered out of the water.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...s-Wainwright-killed-near-Rottnest-Island.html

In short, the frequency of sightings of man-eating sharks has now got to the stage where the shark alert system is becoming impracticable even in those areas where they can be detected.

I do wear a Sharkshield which helps reduce the risk. Most families going for a swim on the beach cannot afford that kind of equipment.

As a parting shot, if there were two fatal attacks year in your area, would you consider it unsafe to dive?

What if there was six fatal attacks or one every two months?

What if there was a fatal attack every month?

What if there was a fatal attack each week?

My guess is that most people would lie somewhere within this continuum?

In recent years we had five fatal attacks within the space of a twelve month period in the state of Western Australia.

 

[drrich2]

Okay, I believe this has been brought up before, but the repetitive propaganda is so over the top it grates on the nerves.

The overwhelming majority of great whites and tiger sharks never so much as touch, much less bite, much less kill, much less eat a human being. Calling them all "man-eating sharks" is inaccurate, slanderous and over-the-top. And you did it 7 times in your most recent post alone, by my count.

Imagine how you'd sound referring to every specimen of every breed of dog ever associated with a human fatality as a 'man-eating dog.' Next time you're out and about and speak with someone, if you see a German shepherd, rottweiler or doberman, be such and drop a reference into your conversation about the 'man-eating dog.' Repeat it at least a few times. Don't be surprised when people widen their eyes and step away from you. Even at the zoo, most of us don't call lions and tigers 'man-eating lions' and 'man-eating tigers' routinely.

The question remains as to how you assess the risk of an attack in both situations and whether that level of risk is acceptable.

Yes, and you seem so risk averse on the subject of potential great white attack despite the seemingly huge improbability of one happening to you that I wonder how you dive despite the risk of drowning that we all face as divers. What about dangerous jelly fish stings? What about the risk of a car wreck on the way to or from the dive boat? How many much higher risks do you ignore or not even notice in the course of heading out to & on a dive trip?

Richard.

---------- Post added February 18th, 2014 at 06:08 PM ----------

P.S.: To address some of your questions, if there were a couple of shark attacks locally, I'd be leery about diving there for a few days, perhaps, but if I'd traveled to dive an area, I'd likely do it anyway.

As to how many deaths it'd take to mandate a shark cull, I don't really have a number. Not 5 in a year if hundreds of thousands or even a few million people are entering the water; wonder what the numbers of humans are hitting the water?

When deciding how concerned to be about shark attacks, I want to know how large an area, over how long a time, how many people are entering the water, what the victims were doing (e.g.: spear fishing, surfing, what?), where (public beaches, dive sites, where are the main 'danger zones'), what species of sharks and what the trends were.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

If the makers of shark shield really believed there was a problem they'd drop the price so everyone could afford one. Problem solved and the sheer volume of sales would make them millionaires if they outsourced the mfg'ing to China to cut those costs. Better yet make it free.

 

[Foxfish]

The overwhelming majority of great whites and tiger sharks never so much as touch, much less bite, much less kill, much less eat a human being. Calling them all "man-eating sharks" is inaccurate, slanderous and over-the-top. And you did it 7 times in your most recent post alone, by my count.

The term was defined in post #20.

Man-eating shark - The three dangerous sharks in our waters are white pointers, tiger sharks and bull sharks. The statistics provided previously indicate the white pointer is by far the most dangerous. Any of these sharks 3m long or more could be considered a man-eater.

I have that specific definition in mind each time I use the term and so it saves having to redefine it each time. It is widely accepted that sharks that fit this description are dangerous and do eat people. So the wording is appropriate and accurate.

 

[drrich2]

Actually, it's widely accepted by knowledgeable people that the overwhelming majority of members of those species pose little danger to the public and do not eat people.

Hence the wording is prejudicial and propaganda.

Richard.

 

[Foxfish]

Several species of shark are known to be dangerous to humans: the white shark, tiger shark, bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas) and other whaler sharks (Carcharhinus sp.).

Sharks in Australian waters - Marine Species Conservation in Australia

From Sea Fishes of Southern Australia:

White Pointer - The most feared animal in the sea because of its many attacks on humans. Extremely dangerous.

Tiger Shark - Very dangerous.

Bull Shark - Probably the third most dangerous shark after the white pointer, and the tiger shark.

Out of more than 480 shark species, only three are responsible for two-digit number of fatal unprovoked attacks on humans: the great white, tiger and bull;[1] ...
...
Although Australia is ranked the second highest in terms of global shark attacks with 704 unprovoked attacks, it is ranked the highest in terms of shark fatalities, with 202 fatalities.[4] ...
Australia has the highest number of fatal shark attacks in the world with Western Australia recently becoming the deadliest place in the world for shark attacks.[11]
...
Australia and South Africa's fatality rate for shark attacks is approximately 30 percent. The United States has the highest reported number of shark attacks but has the lowest fatality rate with around 4 percent of those attacked dying. The United States has had a total of 1,085 attacks (44 fatal) during the past 342 years (1670–2012).[13]

What these statistics do not show is the number of attacks relative to the level of exposure in various countries. The US has a population of 314 million in an area of about 9.8 million km2. Australia has a population of 23 million in an area of about 7.6 million km2. I think it would be safe to say that that differences in population and exposure levels would significantly impact the statistics. So the actual rate of fatality for hours of exposure of people in the water would be much lower again in the US than in Australia.

People's perception of the risk is obviously going to be affected by their experiences which will vary depending on where they live.

I can post the descriptions of the massive injuries of people who have been attacked by sharks including being cut in two, losing large portions of their body and in one case it seems eaten whole if you remain unconvinced.

Oh and I'll accept that sharks can be slandered when they can also be convicted for murder.

 

[Mike.D]

Here in Australia we don't even execute serial/mass murders. Why should we destroy sharks on the basis that they 'may' endanger human life.
Foxfish, as you can see by the reaction and arguments to your posts, no-one seems to be agreeing or even sympathetic to your argument. It is completely irrational and un logical.
You also seem to avoid certain questions that other members pose to you and always backtrack to 'man-eating sharks' and 'exposure in comparison to population' bullsh**.
Dont get me wrong there is a problem and it needs to be addressed but killing sharks is not the solution and it should never be.
-Mike


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