Shark Encounter - what should you do?
There's been plenty of footage of whites not going after splashing swimmers/surfers in relatively calm waters. So many factors come into how and why sharks get 'motivated' to attack. I personally think the splashing needs to be from either a fear response or injured prey putting out a panic vibe,. or some other stimulus to go with the sound.
Get those legs up Brother
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-09/sharks-spotted-close-to-surfers-a...
udo wrote:Get those legs up Brother
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-09/sharks-spotted-close-to-surfers-a...
Prey recognition working in the surfers' favour. My dog is ball obsessed and ignores most other toys.
But not good risk management...
The sharks look pretty pre-occupied with the fish but could get frustrated with small fishies and shift their attention.
Interesting thing about that footage is the fish seem more wary of the boogie boarder than they are of the sharks.
They look like grey nurses to me.
The fish are scared of the surfers because the surfer’s motion is erratic and without rhythm, whilst the sharks are cruising. Go snorkeling and watch how fish behave around you when you relax and swim smoothly vs churning the water. Same with anything really. If a bull idled slowly past me I’d be wary but if it charged around I’d freak the fuck out. Fish are no different. Body language speaks volumes. It’s like…..err, like a language.
Qld shark nets to stay
Big catches on Goldy in June - 19 Tigers and 2 GWS... one at Snapper.
Drowned or released Udo?
Dunno Blowin . In this clip 2 swimmers are in a bait school. One is static and the fish are avoiding him ,.One of them swims fairly rapidly through the fish and they don't really disperse until they stop swimming and stand still.
I dont know how true this is but i read somewhere white sharks only eat a seal or large meal once every three weeks. If they are cruising by you they probably dont need a meal.
Might have something to do with Ramadan.
https://www.realclearscience.com/journal_club/2013/03/20/great_whites_ma...
A seal every few days they reckon. But they can go weeks without a meal when migrating. If you encounter one out in mid ocean (shipwreck or some crazy solo row attempt) or one on a long travel between food sources they can be super aggressive. I have read stories of mid ocean adventurers getting rammed repeatedly by hungry whites.
Most large predators spend 95% of their time not in hunt mode - just cruising, sleeping and watching stuff (picture all those Lions lazing around in wildlife docos).
You probably know of this Groundy
http://sharkattackfile.net/spreadsheets/pdf_directory/2012.03.22-Kalbarr...
Why big splash kick outs and air attempts may not be a good idea in sharky spots:
https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/reality-tv/jackass-star-attacke...
It gets their attention - like throwing a ball for a dog.
Gabby better not watch.
dumb fuk got what he deserved
I didn't know about that incident at blueholes Udo but have heard its pretty sharky between blue holes and dang dangs there are a lot of small bullsharks and other species. One guy recently got chased in at blueholes about 8 weeks ago. Some dont surf it due to the sharks but also as its such a short wave, not worth the hassle. If its good there other places 1hr 20min south are way better.
and i went on a crayfish cruise, saw lots of skinny sharks following the boat at the rivermouth and outside area.
A mate of mine who used to be a pro racer on racing push bikes was windsurfing the rivermouth (murchison)about 1 month ago , he used to fix my damaged race bike gears or tyres or mountain bike and only charge me $10 a bike.
Unfortunately he was windsurfing the river in strong winds, fell off for some reason and parts of his body were found the next day by fisheries etc. Sharks got to him apparently RIP. Such a cool bloke.
The joints alive - 3 more at Evans Head yesterday
https://www.dorsalwatch.com/report/index.html?id=25646
I have never seen this many whales so close to shore. Yesterday one whale was literally 20m out past the waves breaking zone. Unbelievable. And if the whales are this close inshore you know what’s following them.
frog wrote:Why big splash kick outs and air attempts may not be a good idea in sharky spots:
https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/reality-tv/jackass-star-attacke...
It gets their attention - like throwing a ball for a dog.
Gabby better not watch.
These guys are Fcking tools. Complete and utter waste of space on this planet. I detest even watching these guys as it just rewards their immense stupidity. Think of the lives they put in danger not to mention the medical personnel they then had to call and take away from someone in need of a real emergency. Fck tards!!
Had my first shark experience last week on the Tweed, wasn't a huge one, and it was just cruising past out the back, but we got out of there. Then went back a few days later to the same spot, and a large pod of about 30 dolphins hung around for the entire session, moving about our area in various groups and splashing about a bit, which was a bit unnerving.
Jono- Is that the first shark you’ve ever seen whilst surfing? Have you seen other sharks before anywhere?
I don't think that's that surprising. I know many surfers who never see sharks.
As a very regular surfer I would only say I see what I would wholeheartedly confirm as a shark every couple of years. In saying that I'm not looking for them either.
I only saw my first shark once moving to the East Coast. Back in SA the water is generally too dark and slightly murky to be able to see them.
It's amazing how invisible big creatures are out there. The other morning I went for a surf and two dolphins popped up about 15m away. There were heading straight for me and would have either gone under me or beside me and I couldn't see them for the life of me. Never saw them again. Water was only mildly green, slight overcast.
Yep Blowin, first shark I've seen whilst surfing. Seen a couple before when I've been on a headland, and also took a boat and saw some massive whites eating a whale carcass off Cape Jervis a long while back.
Ive only ever seen one shark down here in Vic about 20 years ago, I was laying on my board on a small hot summers day alone and saw the classic perfectly outline silhouette against the sand bottom not sure what species i dont think it was a white, i just calmly paddled in.
I also saw a bronze whaler while surfing at Fraser Island just me and a mate right in front of us in the wave face paddling out, quickly went in that time, also had a totally surreal experience fishing from a ski there about 150 metres offshore on outer bank edge, where a shark flashed past chasing a school of fish, then circled back pretty much surfaced and i saw it's eye looking at me maybe only a metre away, actually made me physically freeze and shake....then it just spun off.
Use to see them at Fraser Island all the time when i lived there a few a year, mostly when fishing from beach or boat.
Hey Indo, Venturing and exploring around Indian Head was a pretty sure bet for shark spotting on Fraser...
A few years ago I heard a story from a guy who was invited onto one of the whale watching boats in Hervey Bay because he had experience running whale dive tours in Fiji and the Hervey Bay outfit were looking at setting up something similar where you can hang off a rope in the water when the whales are about.
The skipper and this fellow were up on the bridge and saw a shadow coming up out of the deep so the skipper called out on the intercom for everyone to go over to the side to see a juvenile Humpback come up to the boat. Instead a 3m white pointer cruised up, swam the length of the boat and slid back to the depths.
I’m guessing there is no mention of that little occurrence in the brochure
Re the White at Hervey Bay, with the amount of whales up there these days may be just a matter of time before there is a more serious interaction at Lady Elliot. This footage is from last year of one checking out a snorkel group.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-10/rare-great-white-shark-encounter-...
Distracted how’s that water clarity, stunning.
And the girth of that shark... that thing is a monster. He did well to keep so calm.
Beautiful looking water isn’t it. That shark really didn’t look too interested in the diver. Like someone said previously the sharks probably go a while between meals and aren’t hungry at times but if you’re in the water and they’re hungry then that might be your unlucky day.
But there are also instinctive responses. The footage from DPI at Evans Head when the bodyboarder kicks for a wave triggers a reaction from the juvenile white at 2.15 in this clip. Just like when bass fishing and you give the lure a twitch.
https://m.
I was out at a nice right by myself in the Telos a few years ago. Everyone else was on the boat snoozing or eating. So nice being able to pick any wave I wanted.
Then out the back a huge black fin sliced up out of the water for a second before it disappeared. I freaked and waved over the tender and sat in it watching for a while. The fin was in a hurry heading up the coast so the danger seemed to fade and something about the fin shape had me confused.
In the end it was too perfect and empty to leave so I went back to surfing and slowly forgot about it.
It was not until later that night when I talked to the skipper that the snapshot in my mind all made sense. It was a manta ray flashing a single wing tip up out of the water.
But for a moment, the adrenaline sure kicked in.
Here is the video of where prey recognition a GW of a seal is instant.
Sobering stuff to watch. However, the behaviour is so much a contrast to the usual shots of GW cruising by surfers that it is also sort of reassuring. They know what they are looking for and when they see it don't hesitate. We mostly just don't match their mental pictures of what they have been eating a few hundred times a year for a decade or two.
Even so don't watch it too often....
Declining Kelp
it's interesting to watch that drone video from the perspective of the behaviour of two prey items of white sharks in this region.
Rays and bottlenose dolphins.
both in the surf zone.
Rays move much more sedately in mid or lower water column so sharks can afford to be more circumspect in their hunting mode.
But if a juvey/sub-adult white was hoping to take out a juvenile or sick dolphin in the surf zone, the best method would be for an ambush in the surf zone when the dolphins were lallygagging at the surface. Which they do a lot as you can see from the drone footy.
they breathe air so they need to surface regularly.
In that case a much faster ambush attack would be needed to secure a large, fast swimming animal like a dolphin.
The white would have to pick off a single individual from a group.
This seems to match the attack methodology show by whites around here.
Most people attacked have been in small groups and picked off.
Freeride, sounds about right. The dice rolls every day. Every now and then it comes up: Wrong place, wrong time, wrong signals and wrong shark. With a GW population surge more dice are rolling each year.
Udo's link is interesting. Note how the sharks and rays just hang out near each other in the kelp area. The rays look like sitting ducks. They seem to know they are not being hunted at the time the drone footage was shot. We, on the surface are mostly blind to such signals.
The speed of kelp decline is shocking. Too many humans.
That shark looks well fed and relaxed Distracted, great footage. I’ve seen a few reef sharks out there and a Hammerhead but not a White, thankfully.
Spookiest thing was having a seal pop up next to me one day at Ethels in SA. Dark water and had no idea it was there until it showed itself and then just as quick it disappeared leaving us wondering what else was under us. Took an effort to stay in the water afterwards
Yes, I have had big dolphins pop up right beside me in clear water on a sunny day and I never saw them come and once they went under could see nothing due to sun reflections.
I almost got knocked off my board the other day by a huge swirl of turbulence. I thought shark but the reef I was surfing had a weird whirlpool every now and then at the takeoff and so decided that was it. But the water was too green to see more than a few feet so I really did not know what was below.
The things we do for fun....
Another interesting thing is Udo's link is how the smaller GW, upon meeting a larger one, tries to approach it during the "greeting" from behind. It is not planning an attack. It is being cautious and "polite" - not being too much in the other shark's face in a place where they have been seen to regularly congregate in groups morning and night (among the kelp in this case). If you hang out with the biguns you have to have some "social skills". The smaller shark tries to avoid a face to face close up interaction and so they circle about each other in their "greeting".
This suggests some of the casual approaches to check out surfers from behind we have seen in drone footage are not necessarily only a hunting behaviour. It is also a cautious angle they take to have a look at something relatively large in the water and sort of say "gday" if it is another shark.
Back to the original thread topic - "what should you do?"
This shows another reason behind the effectiveness of facing the shark in certain circumstances. It discourages both the hunting process and adds to caution / hesitation built into their social behaviours. It also supports the idea of checking behind you a lot and shifting the direction you face in the water as you surf. You are more likely to put off a shark from having a go and to get a glimpse of a fin or shadow early in the common "checking out process" - giving you more time to make a plan (quietly head to shore mostly) during the hesitation phase.
Good story frog , on my second surf at the bluff I kicked off a wave and a very large black fin was cutting the surface , there was 2 others out and I went into hysterical mode sceaming “ shark shark “ the 2 others just sat there and I knew they could hear me and thought WTF ? I paddled back to them and they calmly said “she’s right mate it’s just a manta “ for the next few days a family of 5 giant manta’s , mud dad and the 3 kids hung out in the bay . We saw sharks pretty well everytime we went up the beach to the shorebreak , you could see them when the waves stood up . With so much fish around they never bothered us .
I've had those manta rays circle me at the Bluff too.
it's an amazing experience.
Corrected public funded shark researcher description for the Jeffery's Bay attack is:
"a great white was reported to have interacted twice in a friendly exploratory way with a human intruder before departing with deep regrets for the innocent mistake and promises to never do it again. Further large research grants are clearly needed to better understand these unintended incidents, disprove growing clearly misinformed anecdotal reports of population increases and to educate the public to avoid stereotyping such GW behaviours."
Pointers interact with surfers the way that Ivan Millat interacted with backpackers.
Not allowed to call them attacks anymore.
The new terminology is "bites" or negative interactions.
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/scientists-urge-encounte...
This Orwellian language change is to “help improve the public’s understanding of sharks and how they behave”.
I kid you not.
@freeride76, did you watch the webinar on shark culling Wednesday ? I had 1 eye on the footy and the other on my phone watching webinar. It was a bit disappointing, I was hoping for some interaction between watching surfers and their point of view to add to the discussion.
I watched that too FR and did cringe a little at the politically correct way to call an attack a bite.
Hows this. The shire of the Great Southern where i'm based are actually asking people/public for their feedback and knowledge on shark mittigation .
Here's the survey. Just filled it out. Thought it was a good pro active way to get
feedback from people who use the ocean, the downside though being Joe public who doesn't use the ocean much but still has their strong opinions but at least they're getting a wide range of feedback from as many sources as possible before making their next decisions.
https://uwa.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cYfPd5iWuahrvNQ?fbclid=IwAR1Jpgnqs...
Same here Supafreak.
watched the first half hour with one eye on the footy.
seemed like straight up shark advocacy to me, no real rigour in the discussion.
it's a very polarised issue.
Recent events have me thinking. What SHOULD we do if we encounter a shark while out surfing?
Let's discuss it.
I think there are two separate types of 'encounter':
1. The "attack" - where a shark attacks without warning, and
2. An 'encounter' - where you see a shark and can take some type of action.
It's the 'encounter' type I am keen to develop a plan for ...