Its actually somewhere between 50 million and 100 million sharks killed by humans every year. Very few for food...and then only for their fin.

So what do you want the state to do?

I think the only thing the state could do is put up nets around the most popular areas to keep sharks out. What else is there? I guess you could keep copters in the sky with sharp shooters but is that really a good idea?

What can you do? You can go on a "witch" hunt but that's not gonna solve anything. There's always going to be shark attacks on people who go into the surf in areas where sharks generally feed.

I'm sorry you lost your friend... way more lives are lost on the roads... way more.

I don't understand the point of this thread at all... I'm out.

I was personaly biten in the bum, but got away scott free.
Very same day I lost a good friend of mine, he was biten in the thigh and bled to death in the water. he had two young boys.
I Had to clear all his stuff out of his house the next day.
Painfull memories.

I still go out on the water, and sometimes even feed the sharks.
To me they are the most powerfull and respected creatues around.

Nico

Shark nets crack me up.

I remember my last trip to Auz. Stayed at a surf life saving club. Super cool spot, super cool peole. One of my greatest trips ever.

There were red buoys out past the surf every 50m or so and I remember feeling nicely reasured when someone told me they were shark nets. A little later I was out with someone ripping around in a dingy and we head out to see the nets. Holy shit! What a joke. It was probably 15m deep, the net went down about 3 ! There was beach in both directions as far as the eye can see, the nets spanned probably 500m Further alond there were no nets. only a big hook with a dead mullet on there! I was decidedly less reasured after that!

Jack. Going into the water to kite/ surf is a choice that is full of potential risks. Sharks are just one of them. If you want to avoid them simply take up another sport. I ride some spots that have the potential for shark attack but I would never expect that government should "do something" to reduce my risk. What would that be anyway? Kill all of them? That kind of thinking went out the window about a century ago once we started loosing some species to extinction.

Have any of the attacks in WA been on kitesurfers? I have my doubts that you'd get attacked if you are out kiting or SUP surfing. It's really just the prone surfers that look so tasty to the sharks.

Yep, thats how they are. The only place I've come face to face with a decent sized shark was at 7am out for an early one in Queensland. I spoke to a guy who pits up the nets, he said that the problem is they often have the reverse effect of trapping sharks inside them!

Does it stop me surfing in the exact same place though? No.....

Yep. Fact is none of these Shark Lovers ever spends any time paddling a surfboard around in potentially sharky waters, nor has any loved ones out there surfing. They don't know what it feels like to see that fin or know that someone was bitten in half at this beach last year. If they lived and surfed there they would be singing a different tune.

Well that is a load of bollocks if I ever heard one.
I've seen sharks padding surfing, SUPing and kiting.

So who are these "THEY" that you so generously generalize to? You know where you can shove the stickman argument? 100 years back in time.

You have not presented a solution. So come with it.

Sharks are part of the ecosystem, and they are a critical part of it. They tried the killing approach in Hawaii in the 1970-80, and found they generally killed the wrong shark.