drrich2
Contributor
Don't know whether this has been discussed before. Thought about it yesterday and wanted to ask your thoughts.
It's been said that great white attacks on humans are likely often due to mistaken identity; at the surface, and especially on a surf board with feet sticking off the back & arms dangling over the sides, humans can look a lot like seas or sea lions. Couple that with the fact that GWS are cold water sharks & thus encounters with humans often involve people wearing exposure suits like wet suits, and I figure...
that a lot of people who dive around GWS are wearing black wet suits that look too much like a sea lion for comfort.
Here's a thread for a 'Shark Research Institute' page dealing with the question of whether sharks see color. Evidently they don't discriminate color much. But I would think patterning could be used; a black wet suit with white or yellow spots or striping to break up that seal-like silhouette, perhaps?
Anybody ever tried something like this? I'd think dressing the dummies used to trigger GWS breech attacks near Sea Island, South Africa, in these 'I'm not a seal!' wet suits would help test them.
Richard.
It's been said that great white attacks on humans are likely often due to mistaken identity; at the surface, and especially on a surf board with feet sticking off the back & arms dangling over the sides, humans can look a lot like seas or sea lions. Couple that with the fact that GWS are cold water sharks & thus encounters with humans often involve people wearing exposure suits like wet suits, and I figure...
that a lot of people who dive around GWS are wearing black wet suits that look too much like a sea lion for comfort.
Here's a thread for a 'Shark Research Institute' page dealing with the question of whether sharks see color. Evidently they don't discriminate color much. But I would think patterning could be used; a black wet suit with white or yellow spots or striping to break up that seal-like silhouette, perhaps?
Anybody ever tried something like this? I'd think dressing the dummies used to trigger GWS breech attacks near Sea Island, South Africa, in these 'I'm not a seal!' wet suits would help test them.
Richard.