Beelzebub said...How many people in Gracetown, Port Kennedy, Cottesloe and Wedge have been killed by elevators, escalators or toasters? How many have been ripped limb-for-limb by blood-thirsty maruading sharks?
In recent years more people have been critically injured/ripped limb-for-limb and/or killed on blood thirsty, marauding dirt bikes at Wedge/Lancelin than all shark attacks around the entire country, you'd have a greater impact on human life banning dirt bikes in and around this tiny stretch of coast than you would have if you killed every GWS in Australian waters.
Face it, kiting, surfing, diving, kayaking, whatever you poison, now has a slightly higher risk of something bad happening with more GWS around.
Why did so many many surfers undermined their own argument by going back in the water at Wedge so soon after the last attack? If there are so many sharks in the water that the risk is unacceptable why the feck did they go back in the water at Wedge so soon and before any GWS were culled? If it's back in the water at the same beach and as an act of solidarity towards the victim (it's what they would have wanted...) why is that justification no longer bandied around two or three weeks later when the risk is reduced?
I think if you can put up with the risk of going back in the water at the exact same spot as a fatal attack less than 24 hours earlier then you lose the right to whinge about the risk three weeks later.
Culling, shark nets, a better shark shield, I've no fricken idea what the solution is, neither does anyone else really, what is needed before this problem can be managed is more meaningful research and more tagging, and lots of it. Then a decent, informed decision can be made. The call to cull 'em all without any scientific basis and with what can only be considered objectively at the moment as a statistical anomaly is narrow-minded, selfish and short-sighted.
For the record, if I get taken by a shark kiting, diving or kayaking at my local; you can leave the shark alone and I don't want you back in the water at the same spot the next day as an act of solidarity, put it simply, stay the feck out of the water for a few days, there's a big shark out there!