PaddlePig said...

Listen people, I can not applaud your intelligence enough. The support for a cull is fantastic! This is our opportunity. I don't believe there has been a more serious topic ever discussed on these forums. In the past we've had people writing letters to politicians to condemn / support a shark cull. This is our chance to make ourselves heard. I've written to Colin Barnett twice before but I think this time we might have more support. Make sure your voice is heard.

So are you bascically calling people not in favour unintelligent? A bit rich considering your previous comment in this thread...

brad1 said...

What gives the human race the right to kill/cull/slaughter other species to promote its own population.

The same right that sharks have to eat people. The law of nature.

However we have intelligence and wealth to learn about them and develop systems to avoid confrontation. It would not cost a huge amount of money to have an aerial shark patrol to look for sharks hanging around people in the water. The information the patrol gathered would be valuable and could be sold to cover some of the costs.

Mobydisc said...

brad1 said...

What gives the human race the right to kill/cull/slaughter other species to promote its own population.

The same right that sharks have to eat people. The law of nature.

However we have intelligence and wealth to learn about them and develop systems to avoid confrontation. It would not cost a huge amount of money to have an aerial shark patrol to look for sharks hanging around people in the water. The information the patrol gathered would be valuable and could be sold to cover some of the costs.

Shark patrols are for the most part useless in anything other than metropolitan beaches in summer. Last summer we spent million on helicopter shark patrols.
I watched them blasting up and down the beach, often at such low height and high speed so as to make spotting even the biggest shark a doubtful venture.
We still had people eaten by sharks, just not right under the helicopter.

Those solutions are very much supported by helicopter pilots wanting to get their hours up so they can go off and get a high paying job on an oil rig somewhere but it is not money well spent compared to what it would cost to give a fishing boat permission to take the offending shark or sharks out of the system.
Why do people want to waste time and money and human lives by not trying the most obvious solution first ?????

pweedas said...

Actually. Colin Barnett said on Radio National soon after a previous attack that he was all for catching the shark and getting rid of it. He sounded very matter of fact and logical, as he often is.
Unfortunately though, not in this case. A day or two later he had completely changed his tune and was back to the old throwing tax money at the problem to study it more. Lots of "unanswered questions" and all that.
Very poor effort Col.
Largely as a consequence of that iinappropriate action we now have yet another water user turn into fish food.

largely as a consequence of being in a sharks natural habitat...got fark all do do with pollies

Terrible what's happened this past year, but what about acoustic tagging of sharks like CSIRO have been doing? Spend the $$'s on catch, tag and release. Set-up local listening stations and keep an eye on where the tagged sharks are. If there's one in the area, let people know. Won't necessarily solve the problem, but allows us to spend some of our energy actively seeking to track down sharks in the area so they can be tagged and monitored (not killed). Will also add greatly to our knowledge of their behaviour.

AUS02 said...

Terrible what's happened this past year, but what about acoustic tagging of sharks like CSIRO have been doing? Spend the $$'s on catch, tag and release. Set-up local listening stations and keep an eye on where the tagged sharks are. If there's one in the area, let people know. Won't necessarily solve the problem, but allows us to spend some of our energy actively seeking to track down sharks in the area so they can be tagged and monitored (not killed). Will also add greatly to our knowledge of their behaviour.

THIS^

We've had a bad run of 1-2yrs. Some years we have none. This year has been bad. Who knows about next year.
It isn't a problem that has been around for 10 years. As far as I can see the 10yrs have been pretty much on the 1/yr average. The last year or two a few above average.

And what if we "cull to push them to the brink of extinction" and there is no change. That solution is a typical modern day solution. Hmm it's cheap an easy, lets do it with no guarantee it'll work. What if in 5yrs time they are nearly extinct and then a Tiger shark takes a few people. Do we go cull them to near extinction as well?

I think a proper understanding of them is essential. A cull would produce no guarantees, well that's wrong, it would guarantee even more strain on an already strained ecosystem.

Even if a cull is needed, more research would have to be done prior. To work out how many would need culling, where to do it and if it would have any effect on attacks. You can't just go willy nilly knocking them off with no goals or suggested guidelines. That would be unintelligent.

I wonder how many spinal/head/other serious injuries occur per year from people surfing/diving/kiting/windsurfing. But that'd be an acceptable risk right

Read all of the posts on this thread , understand most if not all opinions & points of view .... but there isn't one single thing that will help young Ben's family get him back and that is what matters to them.
Also wanted to say Bravo to his mates & that Jet-Ski operator who is a Hero in my mind.
Continue on peoples

gs12 said...) the shark has been around for days (if you can trust the internet news):

* Local surfers at the beach had noticed a large shark in the vicinity in the previous four days. They had jokingly nicknamed it Brutus.

Nothing new, young blokes have been flirting with dangerous wildlife forever. It's a natural thing to do, makes you feel alive, impresses the girls. We had a dead whale on the rocks at Sandon Point a while back. Would have been sensible to give it a break for a day or two, the waves weren't all that special. No a good dozen surfers were out there showing off their bravery.

Some would prefer a sanitised ocean, for most of us the risk-assessed potential of meeting dangerous wildlife in a sort of balanced ecosystem enhances the experience.

Dawn Patrol said...
I wonder how many spinal/head/other serious injuries occur per year from people surfing/diving/kiting/windsurfing. But that'd be an acceptable risk right

None of those things are acceptable and when they happen we generally do all that we can to minimise the risk, often at huge expense.
The problem in this instance is that many people seem to be saying we should accept the losses and just do nothing, or at least nothing effective.
I find that a really wierd attitude and totally in contravention of the most basic instinct of all living creatures, and that is the instinct to survive.

Look out our (PM)has even got an opinion on how to deal with the problem

culling sharks will teach us nothing. Yet if you kill a shark known to be responsible for an attack is killed we could learn loads. 1. we can learn the health of the shark and if they really are attacking due to lack of food. 2. If it is the one rouge shark out there it will be eliminated. 3. it will give some peace of mind to family and others 4. the shark may be able to be identified by tags or photo and see if there is connections to cage diving or other human interaction.
But the biggest problem with this is that you would need to wait for another attack and also for the government to pull there thumb out there bum and do something. the fact is that killing a few known to be dangerous sharks may end up saving the species..

In South Oz they do cage diving with GWSharks,

Sounds harmless enough but the sharks get feed,Feed lots!
Not a easy meal as the food is on a string and when they go to eat it the string is pulled and the shark misses the food,
After several attempts the shark eventually wins.

But these sharks are smart they return every year to the same spot and play the same game.

What they eat is boxes and boxes of large cut up tuna.

When one changes eating habits what happens? They get bigger and need more eating right?

Most of these sharks that visit have been tagged and most of the readings are along the WA coast and some to the East coast.

This year has been a bumper season for the company,seeing up to 8 sharks per day.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE EAT TOO MUCH FAST FOOD? WE GET FAT AND LOOK FOR THE NEXT FAST FOOD SHOP!

This has been going on for 20 years and increasing every year, in the old days they would take out just 1 or 2 tuna but now days its like 20 tuna cut into 60 big fat juicy steaks!

doggie said...

Spamboy said...
........2. If it is the one rouge shark out there ........................

What is a rouge shark?

A Great Red Shark I do believe

PS - I'm with Brad1 on this issue.

sausage said...

doggie said...

Spamboy said...
........2. If it is the one rouge shark out there ........................

What is a rouge shark?

A Great Red Shark I do believe

PS - I'm with Brad1 on this issue.

Hahahahahaha

king of the point said...

Look out our (PM)has even got an opinion on how to deal with the problem

Yeah her opinion is to blame the local Liberal Government[}:)]