Sharkbanz and Snakeoil
Chillax finally got tested.
Maybe try the snake oil first.
Good to see independent tests done on them all.
Doesn't put much faith in the striped board theory either
What is Shark Eyes?
Shark Eyes is an affordable, non-invasive, visual deterrent brought to you from the grass roots – the most experienced watermen in Australian waters – abalone divers. Abalone divers have more wild, non-baited encounters with sharks in Australia on a regular basis than anyone else. Read More…
Created by Professionals
Those endorsing shark eyes (our Ambassadors) consist of abalone divers, marine scientists, shark researchers and professional water sportsmen.
Affordable Risk Reduction
Shark Eyes decals are affordable, non-invasive and can be accessed by all ocean lovers. No recharging is required, it does not alter your watercraft’s performance and there are no installation costs.
First Hand Knowledge
At Shark Eyes we trust in the strong anecdotal evidence coming from nature and our ambassadors, professional watermen and women with first hand knowledge.
Behavioural Research
Nature has proven line of sight works as an effective defense against attack. It is common knowledge amongst professional watermen that when eye contact is made with a shark it changes its behaviour and takes away the element of surprise, which is vital in an attack.
Shark Eyes founder Shanan Worrall has spent his life working and playing in the sharkiest coast in Australia. As an abalone and shell diver, spear fisherman and big wave surfer, wild interactions with sharks have been plentiful. He has been involved in a number of shark attacks…
It looks as good or better than anything else out there.
And the "line of sight" theory has a lot of anecdotal evidence behind it from a lot of guys with a lot of experience in white shark encounters.
A lucky escape in Gracetown yesterday. I wonder if the surfer was using Shark Eyes?
https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/sharks/shark-warning-after-surfer-swipe...
Shark encounter at the notoriously sharky south point yesterday arvo!
Mr Rob Bruce is a Legend margs river local , hardcore big wave surfer and top bloke too .
This is the first time a shark has gone for a black n white striped board that i know of .
Maybe it worked? cant say that it didnt succeed in deterring the bite .
Close shave though !
Quote :
"After watching from the shore for an hour as others returned to the water he decided to get back out there but admitted he did not feel entirely comfortable.
“I was shocked,” he said.
“It felt like I’d had five cups of coffee and it was hard to relax when I got back out there.”
The impact of the shark’s hit left a small crack in Mr Bruce’s 2.5m board. He credits the size of his board and the black and white stripes as possibly keeping the shark away after the initial blow.
“The black and white stripes are meant to deter sharks,” he said.
“Maybe it changed it’s mind at the last second. It might have saved me.”
Mr Bruce said until recently he had only seen a shark out surfing about every 10 years. In the past two weeks he has seen three out in the surf."
https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/sharks/margaret-river-surfer-rob-bruce-...
Just thought id point out a few decent problems with the above round of testing at Neptune. The tests were completed over a few trips and on every occasion on each side of the test boat two other boats had shark cages with around 8 people in each cage. Add to that scientists stabbing sharks with a pole to take skin samples and constant chumming of the water every operator trying to lure the sharks to their boat for their tourists or testing, its not really what i think anyone would call "real World" testing. If you imagine all the different options on how the products being tested, any result really was going to be skewed. Especially when often many of the tests were carried out on virtually the same few sharks over and over. Lastly as for the testing all being independent. Well the term Independent is being used very lightly in this report because in truth 4 products were independent and one was paid for by the company..
Testing here testing there Neptune Sth Africa NZ
Why is it any of these deterrant companys can only show a few seconds of Pathetic interaction footage when there should be hours of it..wheres the Drone footage..any testing been done around Hawks Nest Evans Ballina Albany Esperance areas
Tommy Carrol...says Nth Wall Ballina ...stay out all day with a Shark Shield on...but Tommy you havent
Udo i dont think Tom even uses his except for a current affair that time....not none of these tests was fair dinkum and i cant understand why they dont do them properly......Chillax wax was a classic example....whole idea of the wax is the smell but they were chumming the water with fish blood etc so how is that a fair test .......they said it failed but in the real world did it? no one surfs in amongst chum and blood......cant be that hard surely with all the resources available to Flinders uni.
Thats very true. In fact early tests of the board wax seemed to be reasonable. But when you keep chumming, keep trying different options in and out it just seems counter productive. Imagine the first product in the morning will test better than one at the end of a long day of chumming.
The only places to test these devices until recent times has been Neptune. That also means only really one person who can do those tests because their is a management team who decide who gets to and who doesn't work at Neptune. So until recently it meant all testing in Aus was controlled. You simply cant do it anywhere else. The recent testing by Rpela at a new location would be possibly the first time a different location is Aus has been used. Now its gets better when part of the permits restrict any photos or promotion of the spot to be kept of social media.
Jbs sounds like you have been involved in or are privy to the testing at the Neptunes?
So in your opinion how would you do the testing if you were in charge?
Seems like Rpela are seriously trying to prove their product works,and good on them.I hope it does cause i will buy one.
not to argue with the points being made about the conditions of the testing, but i guess one problem is how you attract sharks to an area to generate enough interactions to start making valid claims without creating some kind of non-typical surfing scenario. just trailing the boards outside local breaks is going to be a tedious process- not sure how they can get around that problem. simba - re “all the resources available to Flinders uni”, ask any researcher trying to get access to funds and resources and you might get a bit of a shock. blood from a stone, mate
Yes i have invested a lot of time into researching the to and fro's of sharks for years. I value my legs but honestly i did it more to help make my wife happy about me paddling of with her kids. I found the biggest benefit was to also educate myself on shark biology and how the products would effect sharks. I pursued this to a point i feel very comfortable with my choices.
The worst part is first of all politics of sharks. That even extended to funding of products and as we are now seeing, quality of testing and promotion. For me i dont believe testing 5 products one after another over and over on the same sharks is valid. As mentioned above how can a product like chillax compete with a electronic deterrent in a are heavily chummed area? The hardest part of testing (once you have covered all the legal hoops) is to then as you just said gets sharks interested in coming in and getting punched in the nose, over and over (Metaphorically speaking) to be able to test the product. The big round of testing for SS was by UWA and paid for by Barnet. That was a $600000 grant. Now try and get a small surfboard shaper to compete with that.. I read and see so much info online that its heart breaking to think that a product that will make a difference in the case of a shark interaction, just be dismissed.
Eventually the best product will prevail. Its just a waiting game sadly. But the issue is at hand.
Speaking to Dave about the testing and listening and seeing his face light up. He told a moment of one shark , very early on, that did a surface charge at absolute full speed. It swung and almost back flipped meters from the board and everyone was hi fiveing each other and just standing around stunned. But in the final right up they made the comment no sharks were observed at full speed attack. Turns out unless it was filmed and recorded, it didn't count.
The science of testing and reporting is so complex, i doubt we will ever get a good grasp of just what is possible with these types of products from a report.
Couldn’t find the forum about shark deterrents so have put a link here to some recent research about the deterrents available. Positive comments about the Shark Sheild however pretty well puts the kibosh on the Sharkbanz.
“While the theory is sound, a magnetic field becomes very weak even just a few centimetres from the device, says Meyer. “A shark might, or might not, avoid eating your wrist-worn device, but the rest of your body is certainly unprotected.”
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180228-can-technology-save-us-from-sha...