Lawrence Bartlett Yahoo News 12 Jan 09;
SYDNEY (AFP) – A spate of savage shark attacks in Australia has sent a shiver through summer holidaymakers bombarded with graphic details and claims that the razor-toothed predators are increasingly targeting humans.
Three attacks on swimmers within 24 hours over Sunday and Monday -- just two weeks after a snorkeller was killed -- have fuelled a fevered debate over whether overfishing has put man on the menu.
"Humans are next in line on the food chain," veteran shark hunter Vic Hislop told commercial radio. "It will definitely get worse."
Experts say there is no scientific evidence to support his claim that reducing the shark's natural prey through overfishing has produced a spike in attacks.
But a steady stream of shock reports has won splash headlines and set radio talkback shows buzzing during the annual school holidays:
-- Fifty-one-year-old banker Brian Guest disappeared in a turmoil of fins and blood while snorkelling with his son south of Perth on the west coast on December 27. His body has not been found.
-- Two surfers were rushed to hospital after separate attacks, one on the east coast north of Sydney and one in Tasmania, on Sunday.
-- A snorkeller's leg was ripped in a mid-morning attack south of Sydney by what is believed to be a bull shark, on Monday.
-- Punctuating the attacks have been several scares, including a kayaker being knocked into the water by a great white shark off a popular Sydney beach.
The encounters have been reported in breathless detail under headlines such as Monday's "Escape from the jaws of a killer" in the Daily Telegraph, accompanied by pictures of victims and a surfboard with a monstrous bite taken out of it.
The surfboard was carrying 13-year-old Hannah Mighall at Binalong Bay on the southern island of Tasmania on Sunday when she was attacked by a great white shark estimated to be five metres (16-feet) long.
"She was slapping it and screaming, 'Get it off me, get it off me'," her cousin Syb Mundy told national radio.
"Then she was just yelling out that her leg was hurting and next thing you know all the water was just blood, pretty much couldn't see anything."
Mundy, 33, has been hailed as a hero after paddling over to his younger cousin and hauling her onto his own board before catching a wave into the beach as the shark circled them.
Mighall was having plastic surgery on her leg in the Royal Hobart Hospital, where a spokeswoman said she was in a stable condition.
Three attacks in 24 hours might be unusual, but John West, curator of the official Australian shark Attack File held at Sydney's Taronga Zoo, dismisses claims that the number of attacks on humans is increasing.
"The human population is increasing and more and more people are going into the water, but there has not been a corresponding spike in fatalities from shark attacks," he told AFP.
"There is still an average of 1.2 fatalities a year over about the past 50 years -- if anything the fatality rate for shark attacks is dropping in comparison to the increase in the human population.
"Humans are not part of the shark's diet, otherwise there would be nobody safe in the water."
A total of 194 deaths through shark attacks have been recorded in Australia over the past two centuries, leading researchers to point out endlessly that more people die from bee stings and lightning strikes.
But there is something about being eaten that resonates with swimmers.
"It was basically a scene out of 'Jaws'," said surfer Ian Hollingsworth who witnessed the attack on Mighall, referring to Steven Spielberg's 1975 film.
"The shark went around and I saw it actually come out of the water and hit her... I saw her going backwards, and she was screaming."
Shark hunter's theory on human prey 'rubbish'
Georgina Robinson, Sydney Morning Herald 12 Jan 09;
A biologist says claims that sharks will prey more and more on humans as their other food sources dwindle is "pure fiction".
The claims were made by shark hunter Vic Hislop, who told Macquarie Radio that 200 years of over-fishing in Australian waters had turned the attention of big sharks to "gentler" prey such as dugong, turtles and dolphins.
"That's what's in their stomach now every day," Mr Hislop said.
"As the turtles disappear, which is inevitable, and the dugong herds disappear, humans are next in line on the food chain.
"It will definitely get worse."
NSW Department of Primary Industries shark biologist Vic Peddemor said Mr Hislop's theory was wrong and attacks on humans were almost always a case of mistaken identity.
"It's complete and total rubbish," Dr Peddemor said from the Gold Coast, where he was waiting to examine shark attack victim Jonathon Beard.
"Most species of shark have evolved over millions of years to eat very specific prey items.
"There are only a handful of sharks capable of eating large marine mammals and of the ones that come close it's the tiger shark, the bull shark and of course the great white.
"They are designed to eat marine mammal fat and blubber and we don't have that.
"Even our blood is very different to that of marine mammals so they haven't evolved to have the taste for either our body tissue or blood."
Despite three attacks on humans in the past two days, Dr Peddemor said shark attacks were still very rare considering the "millions of man hours" we spent in the water.
"Occasionally somebody will get bitten and it's inevitably a case of mistaken identity," he said.
"The [surfer attacked at Fingal Head yesterday] was basically spat out even though there were dolphins in the nearby area.
"It's suddenly come across Jonathon [Beard and] thought, 'Here's my chance.' It's bitten, thought, 'Hey there's a surfboard here, it's hard' and spat it out.
"We are not on their menu and they don't consider us as prey items."
There were five key things to remember if you were trying to avoid a shark encounter, Dr Peddemor said.
- Don't swim at dawn, dusk or at night-time.
- Don't swim in murky or turbid water.
- Don't swim alone.
- Don't swim in or around river mouths.
- Don't swim where there are schools of fish or birds diving into the water.
Attacking a few common myths, Dr Peddemor said the presence of dolphins or seals was neither a plus nor minus for humans.
And wearing particular colours was not proven to make any difference, unless you were in yellow.
"There's the old 'yum yum yellow' theory and certainly I have noticed that a lot of sharks do seem to be attracted to yellow or the massively contrasting colour and luminescence of yellow," he said.
Craig Roberts, life saving manager with Surf Life Saving NSW, said this season was no better nor worse than least year for shark sightings along the NSW coast.
Mr Roberts said one was still more likely to be struck by lightning than bitten by a shark.
And dedicated ocean swimmer Paul Ellercamp, who runs website oceanswims.com said a record crowd turned up to two races over the weekend, despite the recent spate of sightings and a fatal attack off Western Australia last month.
"We had almost 2000 swimmers in the water yesterday [at Bondi and Avalon]," Mr Ellercamp said.
"I think ocean swimmers are philosophical and quite sanguine about it really."
Swimmers around Manly regularly swim over colonies of juvenile whaler sharks in Cabbage Tree Bay.
Blue bottles were more of a worry for race organisers and swimmers, Mr Ellercamp said.
"We'll have major issues with blueys several time a season and people will be taken to hospital," he said.
"We haven't had hardly anything this year."
