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Western australia warning

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tautologies
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Re: Western australia warning

Postby tautologies » Wed Sep 05, 2012 5:36 am

They tried that approach in Hawaii. Targeted slaughter and found generally that the wrong sharks were killed. GW are endangered.

There is no stats that I know of that suggest there is one shark that comes back and kills more...so the idea doesn't work.

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Re: Western australia warning

Postby Robsw6 » Wed Sep 05, 2012 8:38 am

SimonP wrote:The cynic in me thinks that the original post is an attempt to dissuade people coming over to WA to kite their local spots. You are far more likely to be killed by a moving vehicle than a shark.
+1 exactly what I was thinking and was tempted to add a list of my local spots to the WA warning.

Every action has a range of potential outcomes - some worse than others...

Your child crosses the road & could get hit by a vehicle, but drivers don't get culled.

You enter the ocean, you become part of the food chain - accept this/HTFU or take up golf.

ps.. we're going to need a bigger boat.

pps. from the press report (below), I would be far more concerned about getting killed driving to the beach in WA (105 road deaths year to date), than getting chomped whilst in the sea (5 reported deaths year to date)http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western ... 6434785443

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Re: Western australia warning

Postby kitesurfwacom » Wed Sep 05, 2012 11:57 am

We have had heaps of debate about this for the last 6 months, I didnt even read any of the posts (apart from the original) as I have heard it all before. Im not going to start the culling/shark nets etc debate but yes the danger has increased but people like me and 1000s of others still surf/kite all year round. If this puts you off a holiday to west oz, I feel sorry for you. We are stoked (less tourists camping/kiting in 'our' areas), but if you use a little common sense i'm sure you will be fine.
The only thing you should worry about is drop bears. Very dangerous creature that gets spooked by peoples kites and I believe have claimed more lives then shark attacks!

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Re: Western australia warning

Postby Pippi langsamer » Wed Sep 05, 2012 12:55 pm

Way I see it, we are in their environment blah blah car accidents blah blah blah......

But, if it were a wild Brown Bear or Grizzly taking out walkers/ hikers in any national park etc anywhere in the world, the authorioties would without question track and kill any bear thought to be responsible. Few people would question the morals of that, even though the bear is only acting on natural impulses.

I certainly wouldn't want to see a cull of sharks, but when the authorities do nothing to try and solve the problem, it must be frustrating. There has to be the technology to try solve this problem by now, surely? I've always wondered whether the development of some kind of buoy device or devices with SharkShield type electromagnetic deterrant could be possible in known shark spots. Knd of like a "virtual", shark net if you get what I mean maybe 500m offshore.

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Re: Western australia warning

Postby streax » Wed Sep 05, 2012 4:07 pm

I wouldn't at all be surprised if the growing shark cage diving tourism industry in southern Oz and South Africa is not helping to promote aggressive behavior you guys are experience. South Africa has even worse shark problems than you guys (they have full time spotters at some beaches) and you guys are a straight latitudinal shot across the Indian Ocean.

I like the comparisons to the bears, because they are a similar type of land equivalence. Although not as ferocious as the bears out west in the US, it was discovered over time in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park that they made some major mistakes in the policies and the ways they handled the mixing of campers and humans. The metal link fence gates they installed over the openings to the backpacker shelters basically turned the campers into the equivalent of shark diver (except on land and with bears.) Particularly when idiot campers thought it would be a good idea to "chum the waters" by dangling food through the gate and feeding the bears through the fence. It led to many bears becoming problem bears and having to be destroyed. The funny thing is that most would agree that feeding a bear through a fence is a patently bad idea... why are there businesses that do the exact same thing EVERY day with large GWS? We learned from bears that it leads to very bad things.

The current policies that are being enacted in the highly populated bear and human forests in the Appalachians are trending towards just not allowing people to camp there... I hope that beach access due to sharks does not become the same once we teach them that humans = easy food. I hiked the 6 mile stretch on the AT over blood mountain and slaughter mountain where there is no camping allowed on the trail. We went a mile further past Neels Gap and woke up the next morning to hear that the next campsite down the mountain before us had been pestered by 3 bears all night. They described them as circling the campsite out in the woods like sharks after tearing into a tent dragging out a backpack and tearing down all the people's food hung up in the trees in bear bags, haha.

My solution:

I think there needs to be some serious research done on the shark diving industry and in conjunction with their operations. All the sharks they are diving with need to be tagged using the radio transponders for tracking, so that we can see what other beaches they are going to and if there is an attack or aggressive event look to see if any of the known "fed bears" are/were in the area.

http://rjd.miami.edu/learning-tools/follow-sharks/

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Re: Western australia warning

Postby kazama-fury » Wed Sep 05, 2012 7:48 pm

Maybe you can wear somekind of shark repellent spray like this: http://www.investorsinsight.com/blogs/w ... -away.aspx

I know that most of the times you don't see the shark comming but atleast the shark won't come back for a second nibble.

There are also some electronical devices on the market that keep the sharks away from you at all times as far as I know although they might be to big for a kiter or surfer to carry (not sure)

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Re: Western australia warning

Postby fdvj » Wed Sep 05, 2012 7:58 pm

It is an attempt to get the numbers of Euros wintering in W.A down, just look at the oz forum and all they do is winge about the tourists.

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Re: Western australia warning

Postby edt » Wed Sep 05, 2012 9:25 pm

fdvj wrote:It is an attempt to get the numbers of Euros wintering in W.A down, just look at the oz forum and all they do is winge about the tourists.
great white sharks agree euros do taste better than aussies

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Re: Western australia warning

Postby Westozzy » Wed Sep 05, 2012 11:20 pm

fdvj wrote:It is an attempt to get the numbers of Euros wintering in W.A down, just look at the oz forum and all they do is winge about the tourists.


Yeh there is some truth to this, but but, there is actually a real statistically defined rising problem here. There is no one reason as I see it, the ecosystem is a complex web of interactions.

Over fishing coupled by GWS protection, and no whaling ( they follow the whale migration), not sure about the cage diving, not sure there is much of that over here, and the massive increase in population due to the mining boom as more people in the water.

So maybe some are trying to scare off euros, but the fact is, there are more shark attacks and more importantly than that, shark sightings nearly every day. ( a function of population and the fact that it is high in the public domain psyche ). But anecdotally through even the surfing and kiting community I am hearing about sightings more and more. As I said nearly every day.

But I agree that you decide to go in the water and take the risks. I will accept that. But I tell you hands down, if a GWS took my son or daughter i would buy a big fucken boat and smoke as many as I could. Like a Rambo shark hunter. Lol. What I mean is ( obvioulsy just making a point i couldnt see myself really buying a big ass boat) there is a personal sorry behind this.

They are a threat to human life. I always laugh at the person looking through the paradigm of a modern conservationist lense, living in safe non predatory WA. I bet ya have used spray to kill a few redback spiders around ya place, same thing, it is part of an ecosystem. Yeh sorry I see your points but I also think you are full of shit, and need to realize that human life is at risk.

It's like the tree hugged I knew, who was a full on save the tree dude, yet lived in claremont(rich suburb in Perth) and drove a Sarb convertible. You have all gone bloody soft and have never had your life at risk. Human life must come first or you must never kill another creature that is a danger ever again. Good luck with that.

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Re: Western australia warning

Postby tautologies » Thu Sep 06, 2012 12:16 am

Westozzy wrote: They are a threat to human life. I always laugh at the person looking through the paradigm of a modern conservationist lense, living in safe non predatory WA. I bet ya have used spray to kill a few redback spiders around ya place, same thing, it is part of an ecosystem. Yeh sorry I see your points but I also think you are full of shit, and need to realize that human life is at risk.

It's like the tree hugged I knew, who was a full on save the tree dude, yet lived in claremont(rich suburb in Perth) and drove a Sarb convertible. You have all gone bloody soft and have never had your life at risk. Human life must come first or you must never kill another creature that is a danger ever again. Good luck with that.
Your analogy does not work. If you get attacked obviously you'd fight, but that is not the same as going on a hunt to shoot as many sharks as you can. The approach of killing the shark that attacked approach has been tried here and it did not work. They generally killed the wrong shark. What good does that possibly do? Nothing.

The bear analogy does not work, because they do know that bear that attack generally will do it again. They not know if the same holds for sharks.

You still do not have propose anything constructive. Neither does OP.

Indiscriminate killing is stupid. You guys are not arguing with reason or even any numbers. It is all emotion.

If anyone argue with you then they have not seen a shark as if that is some valiadtion for having an opinion. Or when they actually have seen sharks, the shark they have seen is assumed to be a small shark. You should really stop assuming that everybody that have a different opinion then you does not know what they are talking about. I can tell you: plenty of big ones in Hawaii.

Western Australia had 46 million nights spent by visitors in 2011. This does not include kids under 15, or people who live there. Let us assume that half of these were going to the beach, and say WA has 23 million visitors to the beaches. Of the 5 people that were killed last 10 months this gives you a probability of 0.0000002% or something (it is probably way lower even for WA) which is what you can start arguing when you want to kill endangered animals.


http://www.coastalwatch.com/news/articl ... cleId=9660
http://www.taronga.org.au/animals-conse ... nservation


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