Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

White Shark cull, Western Australia: Someone make a film about this please

probably the great white's had a summit and one of em pulled out an ipad to show them all the media coverage... hopefully they'll tell the tigers about it as well and word will get around to the turtles and everybody else (:
 
I am doing a experiment. We have these little bugs here that sounds arm in through the cheap screens the landlord uses here by the thousands, jump all over you in bed at night, bite, and jump down your ear hole. I've even had a few in the corner of the eye trying to squeeze in under the eye lids etc (which ironically they don't like being squeezed and causes them to bite). They are attracted to the light initially, so I have to black out or live in the dark.

So I turn a light on outside, get them to swarm to the wall, and spray them. The thought is that they either die around here, or the ones that are attracted to the light die shifting the gene pool to the ones that don't care, so they don't come inside.

So, is it a possibility if Great Whites travel between coasts, that most of the ones that like the bate lines died off long ago, and the gene pool is shifting towards those that have less of a tendacy to be hooked?
 
Ah this is a wonderful subject. I spend five years doing shark research tagging pelagic species in the pacific. I would love to help with this. I have a whole production companies worth of equipment including several reds and a red housing and mind you a complete commercial set of diving equipment. Not to mention the certifications to use it.

Any film would need to respectively reflect the point of views from both sides.

I do know a bit about the differences between behaviors of the Whits on the west coast of the USA and yours. There eating habits are different due to the lack of food where you live. As such people are in the food chain where here they are not. Also the size of the sharks in girth to length is less due to the lack of available food. So there is quite a bit more predation on humans there where here we just get bite and spit.

I am not condoning the culling by any means only indicating there is motivation for it, that should be explained, wether good or bad.. I would love to offer my help with this.

Funny thing is that chumming for sharks here is not needed as we just use a piece of plywood cut in the shape of a seal to attract them. Makes one older is a piece of plywood cut in the shape of a human there would work the same... Scary thought...

Chelsea
 
Chelsea I wouldn't of thought an average of 2 fatal attacks a year equates to people being part of the food chain in WA. I would of thought there was more food off our coast than off the west coast of the USA due to factors such as overfishing being less here and in general southern hemisphere oceans being healthier than in northern hemisphere. We lack large numbers of seals here relative to other parts of the world, such as RSA, but instead have a massive humpback whale migration each year and the Sharks follow this and can gorge themselves on the whale blubber of dead whales- of which there are many.

Regarding girth to length current research shows that for migrating sharks dropping weight is most likely deliberate as it likely positively effects the sharks buoyancy, helping to get a better drift rate on long journeys. Maybe skinny sharks means sharks arriving or departing from transcontinental migration, as they have been shown to do, rather than hungry sharks? And ours do generally bite and spit.

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1766/20130836.full

From having lived in Southern California one of the main differences I observed between there and here when we visited the beach was that no-one goes in the water there. It was bizarre, I'd go to the beach with a bunch of people and we'd lay our towels on the sand and soak up the sun and i'd be like ok who's coming in for a swim. No-one was who. You look up and down the beach and the sand is packed but the water is empty. Not saying people don't go in at all but anecdotally i'd say beach culture in Australia is much more about getting out there into the sharks environment. Also, California seems to be regarded as a nursery of sorts for GWS, lots of small and baby sharks under 2m and not as many large adults close to shore. I think research has shown that different coasts around the world have sharks doing different things, quite likely the sharks are not different from place to place but travelling from place to place to do different things. Not that anyone can be sure yet as our understanding is still in its infancy.

In local news:

Collin Barnett said today he believes the silent majority support the cull. Not sure what he bases this off but thats the thing about opinions I guess, you don't have to back them up with facts. He was quite proud to announce that a "significant number" [4?] of large sharks have been caught. Had this to say about GWS, presumably in response to why none have been caught “The Great Whites are more prevalent on the ocean side in the South West, and the drum lines are being set there this week.” Geographically I'm not sure where exactly he's saying they'll find the GWS. In the ocean in the south west? On the ocean side of the land in the south west? Just generally not where they have been setting lines? Which raises the question, is not having caught GWS something he's unsurprised about because he didn't expect to find them around Perth beaches? Then WTF is the point?

http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/wes...rt-wa-shark-cull/story-fnhocxo3-1226826106635
 
Chelsea, great to have you here. Your only the second or third woman I have seen here, much of a shark pull itself, I know this seal gets them chasing him. Of course, it could be Chelsea a mans name. Anyway good you are volunteering

What Trevor says might have some bearing, but why did they do bay watch, maybe the locals know which stretches and times to avoid there. If the sharks are younger that will affect the length to girth ratio and biting patterns. I think there are some monster sharks out there, especially in the southern ocean. In the Pacific islands I heard as a kid they had a 30 foot shark.


Trevor, the west coast of Australia is more be more like the west cost of South America between the mid part of chilli and Peru, pretty devoid over there until elneano shifts. I think the west coast of the USA though is very rich nutrient and fishing wise. So they could get fatter, plus a migrating shark over here might be skinnier and hungrier by journeys end. But our reduced attack number are probably because of chumming in the eastern states for many decades. If we want a better estimate we should get the worst figures of last century (after people started using the water, before it was illegal in parts) and times it by the increase in actual usage and population, which might be 10-100 times the current rates a year. Scary.
 
On a purely anecdotal basis I know that if I had to catch a fish for my dinner and was given a choice between wetting a line off Santa Monica Pier or Fremantles North Mole I'd choose the latter. I suppose whether or not the WA coast is devoid of nutrients is arguable, but not greatly relevant as GWS are thought to come here to follow the Humpback Whales on their migration from their Antarctic feeding grounds to their NW WA Kimberly coast breeding grounds. They seem to target seals opportunistically though. If you look at the data these attacks are happening mostly to surfers in surf zones where visibility is poor, and the other times to divers or spear fishers in deeper water who are wearing wetsuits. Sharks have no been going to beaches taking swimmers out of shallow, clearer, water even though swimmers outnumber surfers hundreds or even thousands to one. The sharks almost certainly are aware those swimmers are there, yet ignore them. Therefore deliberate predation seems to me a very unscientific conclusion.
 
To follow on that point. If sharks could survive on human flesh there would be no reason not to target swimmers. Seals are hard to catch. People are easy. We know sharks are at the beaches just beyond the breakers because they are spotted all summer long by the ariel patrols. This has been further confirmed by the staggering amount of Tiger Sharks being pulled up on these drum lines within 1km of shore. People are noisy, smelly, and highly detectable in the water and are there in droves all summer long. Hundreds, thousands of people fopping about helplessly from sunup to sundown and they are never attacked, much less eaten. Why is that? Shark experts have stated time and again that people aren't good food for sharks, because we don't have the fat stores, have too many bones, and pretty much taste like crap like most apex predators due to our toxic diets. I'm sure if that wasn't the case then going in the water down here would be about as dangerous as swimming in a river full of crocs up north. With crocs we are absolutely seen as food, as a result swimming in croc habitat is a near 100% guarantee of being eaten. Sharks are the opposite and the numbers support that which is why going into the ocean poses less than 0.00000...1% chance of being eaten by a shark.
 
Trevor Emmerson said:
On a purely anecdotal basis I know that if I had to catch a fish for my dinner and was given a choice between wetting a line off Santa Monica Pier or Fremantles North Mole I'd choose the latter. I suppose whether or not the WA coast is devoid of nutrients is arguable, but not greatly relevant as GWS are thought to come here to follow the Humpback Whales on their migration from their Antarctic feeding grounds to their NW WA Kimberly coast breeding grounds. They seem to target seals opportunistically though. If you look at the data these attacks are happening mostly to surfers in surf zones where visibility is poor, and the other times to divers or spear fishers in deeper water who are wearing wetsuits. Sharks have no been going to beaches taking swimmers out of shallow, clearer, water even though swimmers outnumber surfers hundreds or even thousands to one. The sharks almost certainly are aware those swimmers are there, yet ignore them. Therefore deliberate predation seems to me a very unscientific conclusion.
Click to expand...

They probably go to other fishing grounds than the beach for smaller game, peers and crowded beaches are hardly the best places, the fish probably leave too, giving little reason for sharks to bother.. A big shark is probably not wanting to go in shallow water to eat big game, and there is not the depth for coming up from beneath behaviours. I've heard of bull sharks going into very shallow water to attack. There is a food a WA chain there, I'm not saying that Trevor, just not as big as you get along the Canadian US coast, which would be in the GW eating range. If you went off Brazil or east Africa, and see the amount of people they could feed there compared to WA, it is all about the currents bringing in base feed for the eco system, and run off. Plus, we are really only worried and talking about big Whites that might take more opportunity. There is literally a sea of factors there, and we do have swimmers taken off beaches here.

I've been in croc habitat, it is not a given at all moments and you don't know they are there.. Plus, you are right, modern diets probably make us taste different now. I remember the cannibals used to think the white men were too salty.
 
Forgot, I was saying we should be having up to 400 or so people a year taken in Australia except shark numbers and behaviour modification has reduced it. We can dance around figures but the fact is we have a lot less per minute if swimming chance now. This is just one of the many risk factors reduced in society, that if we had not as a whole, our life expectancy could average in the 20's. This is something societies do to risk factors. Not saying in this case is right, but just another documentary factor to the story. A lot of these risks might seem minor Trevor, but add up. We have to ask is it better for life to keep a risk, diminish it, or get rid of it. A number of cases it is just better to keep and diminish it (say the stripped wet suites, protected bathing pools etc, shark detergents, or nearer the other end reducing large shark sizes through breeding). For instance, having makes around leads to increases in undesirable behaviours of a kind, dies that mean you get rid of makes, no it is about us, and males do an awful lot towards structuring and keeping a society much better and safer. Again, in being married you might be abused, does that mean we shouldn't get married, no, in a lot of ways, especially away from the protections of modern society, it has many, many benefits. You might land up suffering much more and being abused much more out of society. So society and marriage start to give us structures, efficiencies and protections, and maybe hundreds of other things contribute to this too, like intelligent debate can enhance our life and what we do in it. Wouldn't you agree?
 
Wayne Morellini said:
we do have swimmers taken off beaches here.
Click to expand...


I really don't think that is the case. Below is a list of the last 20 fatal attacks in Australia. You are right about swimmers being attacked by Bullsharks in QLD, its happened twice. In WA it is yet to happen. All surfers or divers/snorklers. There is mention of a man presumed taken off Cottesloe whose body was never found who could be argued to be a swimmer, however he was open ocean swimming way out past the breakers in deep water. Possibly as far as 300m offshore if i remember correctly. However this was a 64yr old and it is equally possible he simply had a heart attack and drowned. Way back in the 90's the first modern attack we had was Ken Crewes who was taken off the beach in knee deep water at Cott in front of others who used to meet down there to go open water swimming on weekdays before work, this was in winter at dawn in rough conditions so again not a typical beach goer scenario.

http://www.australiangeographic.com...014/01/shark-attacks-in-australia-a-timeline/
 
From another interesting Australian Geographic article. CSRIO scientist studying the east coast GWS population:

"Barry and his team found that the nursery for the entire eastern population of great whites is a 50km-long stretch of coast around Port Stephens. In the 2008–09 summer season, one of the beaches there, Hawks Nest, was closed 44 times because sharks swam near the flags. Yet there has never been a recorded attack here – no-one knows why. Clearly there are still major gaps in our understanding. “It’s a journey and a jigsaw puzzle with many pieces still missing,” says Barry."

Also

"Great whites have been protected in Australian waters since 1997. So, is it possible their numbers have boomed? If numbers had risen, you’d expect to see an increase in sharks reported as accidental catch, says Barry, and that hasn’t happened. Over the past five years, there has been a slight rise in the number of juveniles caught in the beach nets on the east coast, but this isn’t much above previous records, he says.

Biologically speaking, though, it’s impossible for our great white population to have soared, say Barry and Rory. Female great whites take about 16 years to get to breeding age, and then they only breed every 2–3 years, with just a few young surviving each time.

Shark biologists estimate that it will take two to three decades from the start of protection for the shark numbers to really rise."

And

"John attributes the increase in shark attacks in Australia, over the past 20 years in particular, to more people going into the sea.

According to estimates by Surf Life Saving Australia, the number of people visiting our beaches grew by a massive 20 per cent between the 2008–09 season and the 2009–10 season alone.

Rory says that around Perth the growth in coastal populations is clear, both in the statistics and to anyone familiar with the city."

http://www.australiangeographic.com...13/04/fatal-shore-why-so-many-shark-attacks-/
 
Last call, last call before the bar closes. -- Any redusers in Perth for Tuesday afternoon the 18th for the gathering at Western Australia's parliament house. -- If there be no takers, there is only going to be 2K coverage -- and it will be your burden of personal regret to bear when your children and grandchildren behold your Red Epic in its vintage pride of place in the glass-fronted parlour cabinet - and they say - "We learned about this at school - and you weren't there were you grandpop." -- ( In case something gets lost in the translation from strine to ameringlish, this is meant to be an attempt at humour. )
 
Chelsea Wagner. PARTIAL QUOTE: "Ah this is a wonderful subject. I spend five years doing shark research tagging pelagic species in the pacific. I would love to help with this." - Chelsea. Thank you for your expression of interest in such a project. - I am really only an amateur facilitator trying to arrange some RED coverage for a future project to draw upon. - Have you by any chance, been involved with BBC Natural History Unit shooting shark footage underwater??
 
For those readers who live on this side of the ditch - On the Nine Network here in the West and possibly over east as well and possibly WIN in the country areas.[h=4]60 MINUTES ( Australian Version ).[/h] 7:40pm - 8:40pm Genre: Current Affairs
Scott Miller breaks his 13 year silence on drugs, prostitutes and the exclusive Police video of the moment he was caught. And Sharks versus humans, to kill or not to kill? The desperate plea of a shark victim's girlfriend.
 
Also on BM user's forum, no one has jumped out of their skin with overwhelming excitement seeking to cover in 4K the parliament house gathering on Tuesday 18th, so it looks to be my lot, shambling up to Harvest Terrace from the Perth trainstation with my garden cart loaded with camera stuff. The last time I pulled that stunt on, I got pitched off the train at Fremantle.
 
Trevor Emmerson said:
I really don't think that is the case. Below is a list of the last 20 fatal attacks in Australia. You are right about swimmers being attacked by Bullsharks in QLD, its happened twice.
Click to expand...

What happened in the Sydney beach attack. around 4 years ago?

Reportedly, Vic Hislop actually was finding body parts, and when he went to the police they didn't want to know. He thinks many people "lost" out at sea are n reality picked off by sharks. The one that got my cousins in law was picking them off. I also mentioned the World War 2 incident. The reason for so little modern attacks probably has other origins.
 
Doesn't Sydney and QLD bait and net? Like I said, just talking about WA attacks and will maintain that those haven't been happening to swimmers.

Did you happen to catch 60 Minutes tonight? They did a story on the cull and chose to interview Collin Barnett and the latest attack victims girlfriend. Blatently emotive and manipulative reporting as usual from them, replete with ominous sounding music laid over footage of the ocean to convey the terror that lies beneath. Collin trying to keep a strait face as he says he had to make the tough decision, save the humans or save the sharks. I chose humans he said defiantly. Girlfriend was pro cull, still surfs though. Said she liked it better back in QLD where they kill 700 sharks a year because she feels safer over there, but prefers the surf over here. Plenty of other victims families who've come out anti cull but they didn't track them down.
 
Hey Bob, I'm afraid I won't be in Perth on the 18th. I'll be in Sydney playing with Dragons.
 
Some of that guys arguments don't add up. He says that there has not been a significant increase from the protection in 1997. But when you stop reducing numbers sharks under 16 produce more and more sharks year by year, in other words the 15 yr old females reach sexual maturity the year after the protection, the 14 yr old the year after before you get to 1 yr olds. I. not that naive. He also says that sheep dumping doesn't attract sharks, but has not proved it at all, dismissing things due to lack of evidence is not science, young ace to prove it doesn't happen in which ever wat in question. Why are they saying this, I am illustrating that it is worth questioning the view of science. Anyway, pretty tied, I'll leave you go.
 
Trevor Emmerson said:
Doesn't Sydney and QLD bait and net? Like I said, just talking about WA attacks and will maintain that those haven't been happening to swimmers.
Click to expand...

I've been busy tonight and got really weak and sick, so I didn't see 60 minutes.

But you can't really directly compare WA to Queensland or NSW, they completely swamp WA in numbers of swimmers, and NSW might swamp Queensland, so much more polulatijn and chances. Still, hardly any beach is lined I think in Queensland, because they are mostly lightly, or unpopulated. What I am saying is that baiting and nets on the east coast might be reducing overall attack numbers in WA, though they may increase from population growths.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top