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

Some people are here to look probably up to a hundred times, and many ten times. So that much represent up to 3000 people, maybe 1000. However, with this profile I would have thought up to 10 or 20 thousand people. Obviously the word was not out there in the movement as much, as those people should be behind making and even funding. something like this. Have you guys contacted them, or about doing a kick starter? A mailing list is a good way to get the message around, if they are using one. Thanks.
 
Wayne. Those who are doing stuff know the UHD footage exists. Their projects I think are destined for the HD broadcast realm and likely will drw from the far more extensive coverage than we achieved. I won't go into politics except that as a game changer, a double dissolution could be interesting though unlikely.
 
It was on the Roast program on the ABC. No wonder the ABC is so disliked by them. I think if they merge the self funded SBS with the ABC they will loose the election, plain and simple. The biggest rationalization will be to get rude of the new indigenous channel, which will go down like a lead ballon in the electorate (they are actually doing a descent job of it, it seems) and cut back eventually on ABC indigenous content, and the children's only channel, and maybe 24 hour news, and fill the channels with SBS shittier programming. That will make them very unpopular. They have to learn the reason SBS can run so low budget is they fill channels up with non Australian content, like cheap overseas news broadcast, they can buy dead cheap. Once merged a lot of that is going to have to go, raising the cost, or stay reducing the quality. They need to look at the budget of true free market networks, like the big American commercial networks, and when the ABC budget is less, count their blessings and leave it alone. The reality is to fill the same amount of air time with the same amount of local quality costs about the same here as over there, so the ABC is probably already ten times as efficient and economically rational as the best big American network, if not a number of times more again. They do however need to do something about left and right winged commentators to even out the country.

Do they have any of other leader profiles on that show?
 
I would love to shoot this. I am a documentarian by trade these days, so I think we could turn this into something really interesting.

I am emaiing a few productions now to see if they can release funds to do a 20 min piece on this.
 
Good to hear Ivan, if there's anything I can do to help let me know.

In the news today I'm reading in this 3 year trial they are trying to get through for 2015, 2016, 2017 they estimate about 900 tiger sharks and 25 GWS will be taken, admitting for the first time that it is likely this will impact tiger shark numbers but that they don't consider such impact significant.

"Predictions showed about 900 tiger sharks, 25 great white sharks and possibly a few bull sharks were expected to be caught.
The review explains that the capture of this many tiger sharks “may generate a minor consequence” in terms of the tiger shark population but this is described as a “low risk”.
“This acceptable level of risk requires a higher level of monitoring and a specific assessment for tiger sharks to be completed at the end of the three year period,” according to the PER.

Read more: http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/r...e-year-plan-20140609-zs1vk.html#ixzz347RSASnY

I've said it before but I think it bears repeating, Tiger sharks have been responsible for 0 of the attacks or deaths off the WA coast. I'm not sure what population studies these government departments are plugging into their modelling but in the public domain I am yet to discover anything that suggests we know enough to be confident taking 1000 sharks could possibly be categorised as posing low risk. Some estimates say there may be as few as 4-5000 of them out there globally, with WA waters being a significant refuge and drumline catches from this summer indicating that females, and particularly large females forming the bulk of the population centred off Perth where this cull is taking place.

For me that has been probably the primary story that has emerged here. Its suggested that the irrational fear of sharks cultivated by the movie Jaws may have became the chief architect of the global implosion of shark populations of all kinds over the last 30 years. Here we have a situation in which public safety concerns driven by irrational fear of the threat of Great Whites, of which they have caught 0, is driving a mass assault against another species.
 
Trevor.


There is also a small crew coming from over east in the coming week to examine the shark issue.

Liz Griffin
Victorian College of the Arts.
Student Producer.


Ivan.

If you want Peter Cheng's footage in 4K from the Cottesloe protest, please PM me on this site with a postal address and I will send it to you on a SSD. The sound is not synced to all the shots. Unfortunately I became separated by the crowd from the camera position so had to go wild with the sound recording. It should not be too difficult for me to line it up if you choose some pieces of vision.
 
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Recent footage from my part of the world by local filmmaker David Riggs, who made the Search for a Super Predator film referenced earlier in this thread. I think it's been recut into a Discovery channel special to air soon in the US. And by the looks of his youtube channel there is a lot more to come.

Evidently, the entire time this thread has been going there has been a guy from the same tiny town in isolated southeast WA, probably living within a mile of where I sit typing away, who is out there capturing the kind of amazing vision I could only dream of. Let alone Great Whites, he's discovered a Killer Whale colony in our backyard for chrisake. Small world.


Watched a shark identical to this from the car park at a local beach once, cruising along a few metres out from shore while a group of people had a picnic on the beach completely oblivious to it being there. This was moments after having just explained to my friends who were visiting what a great place to swim it was due to the clear shallow water and lack of sharks.


I walk my dogs here almost everyday, never seen anything like this before. Amazing


Freakin Killer Whales!
 
Didn't read the whole thread now (maybe I'll do that later) but just want to state that; if someone would do a kickstarter or indiegogo pledge-drive on that cause (be it for a movie, doc or just for support of local groups involved) -> I'd totally support and promote it!
 
Good idea Peter, but for the truth, not just promotion.

Trevor, just moments ;-) ~ /| ~ ~ /{ ~
 
There is a relatively quiet postscript to the shark cull debate. The cull has been culled.


http://www.theguardian.com/environm...l-rejected-environmental-protection-authority



There is another controversy happening related to allaged conflicts of interent, mining tenements and retrospective state legislation being expediently passed to repair possible risk to some large resource projects. One hopes that the suspension of the cull is not a consolation prize to make folk satisfied only for other controversial process to go ahead later..
 
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So they abandoned the cull, which failed to catch/kill a single great white. But todays incident regrettably resulted in at least one, I'm hearing early reports that in the end 2, white sharks being captured from the area by fisheries and humanely destroyed. Funny how things work out. Those 2 sharks are the first victims to this governments public safety initiative and probably would of thought being as they were 700km from the former drumline sites in Perth they would of been safe.

For some context this attack happened not far out of town in Esperance and reportably about 150m offshore. Though I am a bit unsure whether he was that far offshore because the breaks I usually see the guys surfing are closer in. As a local to Esperance, which the young surfer evidently was not, I can tell you never in a million years would I be venturing out there. Its very much taking your life in your own hands. Its extremely unfortunate he has been attacked and suffered significant injuries but also very lucky the outcome was not fatal.

Whylie beach begins from Bandy Creek harbour then continues east and great whites are observed following fishing boats back to harbour with great regularity. Earlier this year I watched from shore as a big shark followed a pod of dolphins at the Cape Le Grand NP end of Whylie bay. On Chistmas day a couple of years back I remember eating lunch on the beach at Whylie and then having a quick dip in the shallows before heading home, 15 minutes later some jet skiers came ashore in a hurry and cleared everyone out of the water, having been spooked by what they said was a huge great white.

I think the Premier was overstating the fact that these sharks had to be captured and killed because they posed "significant" risk to public safety because of school holidays. The sharks have always been there, locals know they are there, holiday makers SHOULD know they are there. Esperance is one of the most isolated parts of Australia and absolutely prime territory for great whites. Surely it is incumbent on ocean users to assume responsibility for themselves if they enter the ocean here and not a political point scoring issue or something requiring government intervention?

Not sure what to make of the confusion coming from some suggesting that it was 2 bronze whalers, not great whites, that attacked. Guess that may be determined in due course through analysis of the injuries.



http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/wes...-esperance-beach/story-fnhocxo3-1227077781315

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/25163204/shark-attack-near-esperance/
 
Another update. Victim told paramedics the 2 sharks that attacked him were bronze whalers. Incredibly, paddled more than 100m back to shore after losing half an arm plus the other hand.

Fisheries falsely claimed to have captured 2 great whites and humanely euthanised them, later revealed that both in fact drowned after being hooked on drumlines.

http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/e...vering-in-perth-hospital-20141003-10pq0b.html

http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/e...s-catch-the-right-sharks-20141003-10pnm1.html
 
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