Another shark attack at Gracetown
yeah its been done with bait bags different colours and stripes and stripes and stripes got looked at but not attacked.
Haven't seen too many lions on this savanna, but I am only new to town.
Took me awhile to get school kid thing, bit slow this morning (well always).
Don't know if the spray does anything, except give me a false sense of security, that's fine, it doesn't do any harm.
As for helping train the pointers at Neptune, I'd prefer they didn't.
Haha, not train them but see if it they stay away from the stripes/colours.
for me the biggest change in the last 10 years would have been the re-colonisation of the Sea lions / fur seals back into old spots from perhaps 100 years or more before . and since lefties is so popular that might be considered by whites as a new seal colony .
so for me its simple that in the past they have probably bypassed that area in their migration , but now they are more often dropping in to say hello...... in their own way , unfortunately their " mouthing " is far more fatal that some east coast bronzies .
Boutique seal skin moccasin and sharktooth jewelry shops sound awesome, perhaps have an adjoining café that specializes in surf and turf seal steaks topped with a slab of pointer fillet.
This would would really add to the already existing farmhouse shops and local produce in the region.
I reckon they are training the pointers down at Neptune, Craig.
Fair enough if they interrupt the sharks daily habits or goings on for real research or study (can the results be legit if they have done anything but observe the animal?), but chuming the water constantly, so a few people can make a lot of money, and a couple more can get some expensive thrills, must have some sort of effect on their behavior.
If you are going to protect a wild animal, can you then fuck with it's routine to make money?
Totally agree Moth, I don't condone the chumming and attracting of sharks with burley for tourism.
Sure if they come across them naturally that's OK, but then they won't be able to guarantee a dive/viewing.
I'm against the shark diving by those methods.
Most big game fishermen chum up as well.
True but most big game fisherman don't go to the same spot time after time after time and pour blood and fish chunks into the water for hours on end and then throw humans into the water.
Speaking to a local shark fisherman recently and he thinks we should have a black & white check design (300mm squares) on the bottom of our boards. His reasoning is that there is nothing in nature that has this design and the sharks would be confused by it.
On a clear day I can see the South Neptune Islands from the top of the headlands where I surf and I'd prefer they didn't chum up and cage dive out there! But we haven't had the problems that SW WA has had so far?
Do you live somewhere with a White Pointer problem reecen?
That's amazing YS.
You could see the Yorke Peninsula from Flinders Uni back in Adelaide on a clear day (good 70km) and also the Hummocks on rare occasions which is 100km away.
Crazy you can see the Neptunes though, always thought they were quite a distance away, but in fact same distant from Adelaide straight across to the YP.
@craig it's usually from Westcape Headland in summer when clear and calm. It looks like a faint blue silhouette out beyond Wedge Island. There's several islands in the group. One of the old locals was up there with me one day and I said "what are those islands?". He's like "that's the Neptunes".
Freaky to think they filmed the scenes from Jaws right there! Wouldn't take long for a White to swim across from there to my little playground that's for sure!
I thought they filmed the Jaws footage at Dangerous Reef?
(although that's just another twelve minutes on the Mr Chompy express current)
Yeah I am from WA.
I don't really have an opinion either way on the cage diving, if the sharks are already there it probably makes little difference but if the sharks are being attracted and then held there with burley for longer then they would normally stay who knows what that does?
I am no expert but I reckon numbers have built again there is probably extra competition for food and space and now the big fuckers are more numerous and venturing further afield and eating things along the way.
They seem to do all sorts of bizarre journeys but some of the tagged ones have come from SA all the way across the bottom into WA and offshore from NW cape where they hang around for a while and then head back to SA.
The spot is exactly the same place and time that we used to go and chase schooling yellowfin tuna.
They think with their bellys, just gotta hope your not dangling your legs in front of them when they come through.
What I do know is that after three generations of family members bobbing around on the ocean all day only one of us ever saw a GW and now talking to the guys still out there they are seeing them regularly.
yorkey, cannot believe the foot of your peninsula has been so lucky ,with the deaths in the gulf over the years and with aldinga reef, k.i. cape jervis so close other than the channel 9 cameraman windsurfing on the other side of the foot, you have no attacks, with the annual summer squid and snapper run up the gulf you fellas are only 25 miles or so away ? sitting way out at chi's or pm's or tressies on a big day id be shitting bricks........do you get many sightings of pointers ? looking at the map ,fuck you guys are right there in the middle.
probably less than 25miles from the cape decoudic chomp.
There was one hanging around Pondie a few years back. This seal with a chunk missing out of it was hanging on the beach between Pondie and Richards. It wasn't dead though. And just metres out beyond the shorebreak was this White just doing laps hoping the fucker would go back into the water! Needless to say we didn't surf Pondie for a while.
I figured you might be from down that way reecen. Must be nerve racking paddling out to those bombie's south of Margrets chasing those big waves you like to surf.
Most of the waves down my way break fairly close to shore although last weekends attack proves that being close to shore provides a false sense of security as you can get taken anywhere!
Strangely Yorkes is one place where I feel quite comfortable in the water. Surfed almost everywhere on my own at some point down there although my favourite wave (Tressies) is a little spooky - was chatting to a bloke many years ago (can't remember who), and he'd done quite a bit of shark fishing in the region. He reckons there's an underwater ridge that stretches from PMs down past Ella Rock and over to Dustbowl, and there are hundreds of sharks that wait near the ridge for fish. As a consequence PMs is one of the more sharky breaks on the peninsula (so he said anyway).
The underwater topography makes all the difference Ben.
The fish like the structure but the currents also bump into it and help concentrate the sea life.
There is a spot we surf that is on the apex of a very deep to very shallow V shaped reef and it is like a magnet for sea creatures, been buzzed by a couple of very big toothy fish there in the past.
Miff the surf artist got chased in from Tressies by a big one while surfing by himself on his birthday a few years ago. His misses was watching from the cliff as he scrambled across the inside reef calling her name!
PM's is spooky but I love to surf there by myself sometimes as it's such a beautiful wave and if there's no-one to surf it with I can't help myself. Probably a dumb thing to do but!
reecen wrote:There is a spot we surf that is on the apex of a very deep to very shallow V shaped reef and it is like a magnet for sea creatures
Sounds like a magnet for surfers too!
The shark factor there is so heavy that for some people it is like similar poles repulsing each other.
Yeah, so sad, can't believe it :(
Funny used to surf early all the time years ago especially the pre dawn sessions but boy has that changed in the last few years.Still surf on my own a lot and now living around coffs thought that was a fairly safe bet .until today.Boy does your way of thinking change when it happens close to home.
Spoke to a mate from Yalls last night ..... one of his mates from home had a medium sized pointer come up under him and bump him/his board yesterday at boneyards.... Booooooooooo!
Christ. That's scary.
Pretty interesting reading through all this and what Blind Boy has had to contribute.
Surfing at locations known to be not too far from Great White buffet's always keeps the Jaws theme playing in the back of the head. Having a look through some statistics on attacks, dawn and dusk don't appear to feature, ( with the exception of a couple of dawn swimmers and Ski paddlers at Cottesloe a few years back) rather from 10am till about 4pm. I'd also be a bit apprehensive in WA in October and November. August and September seem popular for Whites in South Oz.
I have always felt the most uneasy when I've been out on a calm day that is overcast, grey, and distinguishing the horizon is difficult. Years back I would sneak early pre dawn sessions at Daly's before work. Never gave too much thought back then about noah's.
The sad thing is at this day and age when we spend millions and millions of dollars looking for galaxies and other planets that probably don't exist, yet we cannot even calculate the population of a 5m, 4 tonne fish!!
There needs to be a serious, and I mean very serious attempt at tagging hundreds if not thousands of these great whites.
Send a pro boat (not fisheries because they have no idea on how to get the job done) down along the south coast, Walpole to Esperance and tag the absolute crap out of them so we have at least some idea about their movements, why they move, travels from east to west, west to sth africa, spawning times etc
Set up a heap of recievers and make the information public so we can make out own assumptions on the data instead of keeping it locked up behind political red tape.
Only once we have all this data available, only then can we very possibly sit back talk about controlling numbers. If there is a stable and larger population than previously thought, why not put a few to sleep if they are hanging in close around popular surf breaks.
Don't agree with cage diving either. Surely the sharks must associate boats with a free feed which is not good when 70% of ones water time is involved in jumping off a boat or ski for a surf, crays or a spear.
cage dive boats out of pt Lincoln in the earlys days would not guarantee seeing a white shark.........these days they pretty much guarantee they will be at boat the by the time you have your wetsuit on.....if no whites appear one operator gives a half of your day trip cost in credit ,for your next trip.
used to the sound of the boat motors and props and associate the noise with an easy feed ? for sure.
how long until they associate the hum of a jetski with a easy feed ?
uncle_leroy wrote:The sad thing is at this day and age when we spend millions and millions of dollars looking for galaxies and other planets that probably don't exist, yet we cannot even calculate the population of a 5m, 4 tonne fish!!
There needs to be a serious, and I mean very serious attempt at tagging hundreds if not thousands of these great whites.
Send a pro boat (not fisheries because they have no idea on how to get the job done) down along the south coast, Walpole to Esperance and tag the absolute crap out of them so we have at least some idea about their movements, why they move, travels from east to west, west to sth africa, spawning times etc
Set up a heap of recievers and make the information public so we can make out own assumptions on the data instead of keeping it locked up behind political red tape.
Only once we have all this data available, only then can we very possibly sit back talk about controlling numbers. If there is a stable and larger population than previously thought, why not put a few to sleep if they are hanging in close around popular surf breaks.
Don't agree with cage diving either. Surely the sharks must associate boats with a free feed which is not good when 70% of ones water time is involved in jumping off a boat or ski for a surf, crays or a spear.
Well said...
Cage diving and purposely attracting these sharks to boats etc should be illegal, it only causes the sharks to associate people with food and cause the sharks to lose any fear of humans or boats etc (if they have any to start with?)
Where I live Mako shark fishing is popular during the summer months and boats burley up the water sometimes only a kilometre or two offshore, IMO another disaster waiting to happen, there should also be laws that prevent this happening so close to coastlines where people are in the water.
in January 2014 w.a. scientists will broadcast killer whale screams through underwater speakers.
luring tiger and great white sharks to an area the replicated sound of killer whale screams will be played underwater to determine how the predatory sharks react, after watching the a.b.c doco on orcas recently and how the presence and screams of orcas cleared the area of white sharks this could be a breakthrough in shark deterrent.
EDIT; this proposed testing may have been halted due to the effect on non targeted species....dolphins e.t.c
Well now is no time to be worrying about dolphins!
Press on, I say!
pic on liveleak of a 3m shark landed by an angler at dunsborough last week cleanly bitten in half by a monster shark .
udo wrote:pic on liveleak of a 3m shark landed by an angler at dunsborough last week cleanly bitten in half by a monster shark .
haha
media will do anything for a story
Was posted originally on someones facebook page and captured a few thousand km's west of WA, off the coast of Mozambique actually. Funny how a few emails later it happened down in Dunsborough.
Bazaruto is a sandy island located approximately 80 kilometres southeast of the mouth of the Save River, Mozambique. It is the largest island in the Bazaruto Archipelago and in the Bazaruto National Park
The media love it.
same as this one apparently eaten by a large tiger shark
http://www.laterallinemedia.com/hammerhead/
guys later claimed to just hacked its head off with a fishing knife and made up a story that went global
yeah seen that shot before . looks convincing .
If it is real , the Hammerhead must have been huge itself
I'm with you Unc, WA govt need to get off their fat cat arses, pull their fingers out and do something urgently. Tag the shit out of the GWS's whether that's via Ocearch or other means I don't care. If they are not willing to do this then manage the population via commercial fishing licences.
a 5mtr pointer spotted by chopper 100mts off a perth metro beach this morning ......when does the drum baiting start ?
edit / jan 10th - 72 baited hooks ........the cull begins.
sharksheild have be given a huge $$$ government grant to develop electronic repellant surfboard fins ....WTF its proven the electronic repellant does not stop the maneaters.
Orcas are the top ocean predator, not only are they huge and highly intelligent but they eat white pointers for breakfast that's why the sharks bail. The sharks poo poo their panties and swim away as fast as possible like anything that knows its prey for something bigger and smarter. Just have blow up orcas with stereos playing orca screams at every beach...
until said blowup Orca's , attract real Orca's , for some Orca Fun . Ornot .
hi my name is damien auksorius ,, why is it that when a person dies from a shark attack that people get upset ,, and when millions of people die each year from cigarette smoking this is okay ,, sharks are only predators looking for fish to eat not people ,
Bloody hell - really terrible news from Gracetown with another fatal shark attack at Lefthanders reported this morning. It's the town's third attack in ten years, and what - seven or eight attacks statewide in the last couple of years? I've lost count.
I was speaking with one of the local dive shops a few years back and they said that the reef system comprising Cow Bommie was one of a couple of the state's breeding grounds for white pointers, so shark sightings were just a regular way of life in that neck of the woods. With tragic consequences today unfortunately.
I think there's no doubt anymore that WA has taken the crown from SA as the sharkiest state in the country.
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/man-dies-following-gracetown-shark-attack-20131123-2y2d3.html