Get back out there and boost.

But before you do.......crikey, serious conversation.

We do not sit at the end of evolution, it isn't a pyramid with humans at the top and end. Every animal continues to evolve, as a response to environment/stimulus changes. Shark's stimulus hasn't really changed that much (we think), so it doesn't need to, if the water gets colder it swims more towards the equator, if food supply changes, it adapts, and adapts well! For humans, we don't have a very long record of the genome. The rate of mutations in a population is a linear product of the rate per genome and the population size. Humans population size is getting pretty impressive now......

I also think its gross hubris for humans to think we've irrevocably changed the planet, and that sharks are responding differently. If all humans disappeared tomorrow, in just 100,000 years from now, it would be hard to tell we'd even been here. And thats a blink of an eye in the planets history (yeah, I'm a geologist). Flame away lads.

Now, get back out there and boost.

DaylightDebt said...
It is a very interesting debate, I can't understand why we as humans on this forum are not celebrating our race's achievements.

And place more value on the life of a shark over a human.

Again for sake of debate, sharks are limited to there environment and canot survive outside there natural habitat.

And we are having a bad time trying to survive in theirs!!

Yup thanx chaps, that's hit the nail right on the head. Clearly I need not concern myself with the prospect of being food. Rather it is more important to debate how well time has made fish able to eat humans, or if indeed they should be considered better evolved than humans.

I lov to boost and consider myself to be the kiting version of a serious druggy, because when I kite all I really wonna do is get real high.  The prob now is that instead of pushing hard, I try and stay well within my capabilities. It's even worse than that as I am even stuffing up bread and butter moves cos I am thinking about being food.

Prob a big part of this is to do with age, kiting alone, recent shark attacks, and cos a 1.5m $#%%$ shark jumped clean out of the water at my kiting spot.

I got a bitten by a shark up at Horrocks on Sunday! I was boogie boarding with my 12yo daughter and few of her mates in the beach break. I saw a few dead NW blowies drifting past outside the break and called the girls to have a look when ...arggghhhh. Something bit and latched onto my foot. I screamed and kicked it off. Turned out to be a decent size wobbygong had mistook my foot for dinner.
Scarpered out of the water with blood pouring everywhere. A nice series of little puncture wounds and a bruise but no major damage. Patched the foot and we all went back in and caught a couple more waves, then decided to go home.

Great story for the girls to tell, I was glad it was me not them that got bit for sure!

Anyone else been bitten by a wobby?

Seems OK markass, I drowned it in Bethedine straight away and have kept up the treatment and no infection after 4 days now, so I think I am OK thanks!

Nah, at the surf, which is the stretch of beach north of the horrocks boat ramp that runs up to stinky point. We were about halfway to stinky.

So after my public hissy fit and reading your comments, the wind came in, I looked at it, took me skirt off and got me gear. I had a good time it was pretty light and flat, so I even went for a few jesus walks (which I stuffed up). A seal came up with a fish in its gob and I still managed to compose meself.

So looks like I am ok, it's nice and sunny, maybe it's the cloud cover that makes the water and surrounds seem more ominous.

Let me throw this one out there....do any of you have children (or young adult sons or daughters) who like to kite, surf, sup. Im sure sharks are nice people too.... oh **** me there not !!!!! They need to be kept away from where we play simple!!!!! what is the frieekin problem with that!

Geez, those sharks in the photos all look really bashed up and cut all over. And didnt their mother ever tell them to keep their mouth closed?

simstat said...
Once again the shark debate turns to name calling and abuse from those posting........

Been talking with a few fishos recently who say they have never seen so many whales. Some reckon 100% more than last year. One seemed to think it was an ocean current change bringing more whales to the WA coast than ever before. The big whites follow the whales up the coast.

Agree with some of the theories on over fishing, pollution etc etc, but a sudden shark spike like we have had this year must be triggered by something?

Any marine biologists out there got any theories on why so many sharks around this year?

I posted this before in another thread, just my thoughts on the matter -

There are a few reasons that sharks are more prevalent around WA these days and a lack of food isn't one of them.

I think the first thing to look at is whales and their migration past Perth from the north west to the south west. Back in the day when we used to hunt whales, the whales would stay miles off the coast to try and get past the whalers with out getting hunted.
As of 1978 we stopped hunting whales and their numbers grew and they started to get closer and closer to the coast. To the point that I have seen them 100m off shore last year, something that I have never seen before at local beaches (Perth).

The second thing is that we haven't hunted Great White Sharks for the last ten years adding to their numbers by more than we know. With more whales means more sharks as the sharks hang with whale pods for an easy feed, so with whales coming closer so are the sharks.

I may be wrong but this winter has been the coldest as far as water temp in a while and we all know that GWS like colder water, and yes they are found in warmer waters but they prefer colder water.

Also seal populations have gotten larger so food for the GWS isn't a problem, and over fishing imo isn't the problem at all.

The rogue shark theory is not really an option as the sheer number of sharks spotted tells us this cant be fact. If you don't hunt them they will come and in numbers. The tagged sharks prove this beyond all doubt so this theory can be put to bed.

The answer? Well tbh there isn't one that we can throw out there and fix the problem tomorrow, and I don't think that there will be one in the near future that is sustainable.
Part of the solution is to try and stop it before it happens and more tech thrown at shark shield type devices the better and these are not a solution but a piece of mind but they will have to work much better than they do now.

As far as culling them goes killing ten even twenty of them might help for a while but for how long? A month, maybe two? Some of these sharks come from as far away as South Africa so culling unless you were to kill twenty a month isn't going to work and is not sustainable.

Hey I've read here that sharks used to go to woodies because of the offal dumping that was done there until the 70's; true?

Sharks do return to areas where they know they can feed.
So would it be a stretch that they could also learn to associate humans with their car sized hunger pains due to the adrenaline cage diving tours?

It would seem to me that putting burleigh and humans in the water at the same time are making sharks associate us with a feed. If so then they would be stoked to find there is no cage around you when you're floating in the soup!

I reckon it's time the gov put the brakes on the way any of these operators 'find' their sharks.

Beelzebub said...

Oh ****, sharks are making you nervous? how do you think they would view the situation?

Their cro-magnon brains view the situation as: Food! Me hungry! And that is a far cry from what you see as "perfect", considering they cannot even wipe their own asses and are reduced to defecating in their own "habitat".

you refer to a sharks brain as cro-magnon, how could a sharks brain possibly be even close to cro-magnon.
and they can't wipe their own asses, but they don't have arms. maybe if they did have arms they would wipe their butts.
but then.., maybe they evolved to the point over the last fifteen million years that they don't need to wipe their butts...
and as for pooping in their own habitat, their poop feeds little tiny fish, which are eaten by slightly bigger fish; which in turn are eaten by fish just a little bit bigger, whom also end up being eaten by fish that are bigger than themselves who end up being eaten by a bigger fish whom, either gets eaten by a shark or eaten by a human who ends up being eaten by a shark...
so you see, the shark is a highly evolved farmer..
but lets move on....

By the way, while sharks have done nothing but kill for the last 15 million years, in 100,000 years those "stupid" mammals have evolved from monkeys to determine the the origin, history and future of the universe. That is something that warrants genuine respect.

firstly if you care to look, there is evidence of human civilisations existing back more than 100,000 years ago, civilisations rise and fall at the whim of the earth and universe.
there is no evidence of humans evolving from monkeys, evolution from monkeys is a theory.
the 'stupid' mammals or 'hybrid monkeys' (another theory) that you deem to warrant genuine respect are, according to their own 'bought and paid for' brightest of bright, responsible for the greatest loss of habitat and species on our home planet in probably its' entire life (yes that's right the planet itself is alive).
infact we are so 'evolved', we wipe out entire forests and pour endocrine inhibiting dioxins directly into the water we drink and need to survive, just so we can make cheap fluffy paper so we can wipe our butts and flush it into the ocean.