Help Us Help Sharks - Great White Sharks are in Danger!!!!

[wahlaoeh]

Tagging a shark like what Ocearch did as shown by the video below, IMO is definitely 100% wrong.
Great white grab: OCEARCH tags first shark of the summer - CBS News Video

This is just a short clip of what happened and you can already see the trauma the shark has to go through. Employing such inhumane ways of forcing the shark to fight on the tow line (for I don’t know how many hours??), until she is totally exhausted and then sticking a pipe into her mouth with water flowing through (remember the gruesome images of the POWs during the WWII) before drilling in that damn tag into her dorsal fin. In this case a SPOT tag which has been reported to damage the dorsal fin. She is a beauty before but now she has to be disfigured. For what?? To benefit us, human!!!

And look what they tweeted previously on the loss of Maya. Was Maya anemic and sick before they forced her through all these??
OCEARCH‏@OCEARCH15 Jul 12
@CaitlinOchtera Unfortunately she did not. She was anemic, sick shark.

It is very clear that there is already a lot of money pumped into this “scientific” program by many groups/scientists around the world.
Are they working together and sharing information so as to have a little more accountability.
I was surprised when I was told by a local scientist on my trip that Ocearch refused to share information with him. Why??

Regarding the shark attacks in Australia -
Do you think that there is an increase in shark attacks? Or are there more people and time spent in the water that increase the probability of such attacks.
Simple equation: The more people/ time in the water = the higher the probability something will happen. This is not rocket science but just reality.

How many sharks do you think there are in the waters of Australia? What percentage would you like to see tagged? Can we tagged them all?
Will tagging a couples really stop these occasional attacks? I’m doubtful.

---------- Post added October 25th, 2013 at 02:12 PM ----------

However as soon as we saw that the tags were causing damage to fins we immediately began removing them.

@Dan, could you explain how do you determine this and how was this done? Was the shark released back to the ocean and you seen it struggling to survive and then you guys decided to remove the tag in case ... And how many incidents have you seen damage done during your volunteer experience?

 

[Wingy]

Of course tagging wont in any way stop any shark v human negative encounter..statistically they are so rare when you have a cluster of fatals in a few years people..the public..want ''something done'' - I am not on the program nor do I know any more info about the program but I believe we have tagged enough to come up with this -Extension of the shark monitoring network and the public also has this Shark Alarm - Live shark alerts, shark sightings, and shark attack information I cant speak for other states, and the simple answer to your question is the increase in encounters is because we gave them protected status a few decades ago and we have had a population explosion due to a mining boom so more people in the water and mature sharks. If a 5m white wants to have a test bite, its generally going to result in the swimmer/surfer/diver bleeding out.

Surfers and families can check that website and make a decision and feel a level of security. Again, rather that than the baying for blood every time there is a bite.

 

[wahlaoeh]

The last sighting is on 16, April 2013 .. what happen after that? No more shark in Australia??
I briefly clicked thru the sighting reports and saw there is an average of one report per day before that, often by HELICOPTER. See there is no need for tagging
Shark Alarm - Live shark alerts, shark sightings, and shark attack information

Has there been any correlation done to see what percenatge of these shark alarm sightings are tagged sharks??

 

[Wingy]

Shark research It appears that is one of the areas the research is focusing on.

Oh no plenty more Sharks here - the reason you see a gap in public reporting of sightings is because less people around the coast during winter - those were our coldest months.
They make the news regularly at the moment - having a whale of a time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y6ka_B3v-8 Last Week

Re using choppers - impossible given the length of the western australian coastline. Im not pro or anti tagging I just understand why we have a program like this and am glad our conservation laws have allowed our sharks to increase in size and numbers.

 

[wahlaoeh]

Not sure if I quite agree with your statement above. Not challenging you but just wanna to ask questions. As a citizen, I think you should too.The gap is from Apr to now(end Oct). If you looked at the historical reports, there are sightings even in Aug, Sept, Oct of 2012 .. I didn't go back further. Why??
If this website is what the beach goers use for tracking sharks .. apparently it's not helpful.
Shark Alarm - Live shark alerts, shark sightings, and shark attack information

 

[Arubandi07]

Not sure if I quite agree with your statement above. Not challenging you but just wanna to ask questions. As a citizen, I think you should too.The gap is from Apr to now(end Oct). If you looked at the historical reports, there are sightings even in Aug, Sept, Oct of 2012 .. I didn't go back further. Why??
If this website is what the beach goers use for tracking sharks .. apparently it's not helpful.
Shark Alarm - Live shark alerts, shark sightings, and shark attack information

You should have. You can't possibly come to a valid conclusion in terms of an emerging trend, or the actual impact of shark tagging, based on comparing just two years.

 

[Wingy]

Shark Alarm is not a govt sanctioned website as far as I know, its done by volunteers. Public post sightings - not always accurate either - dolphins have been mistakenly added at times. Surfers are the main users of this webpage. I guess the organisers of this site are going with the some information available is better than no information and if you want to go out, up to you to check sightings. I havent gone through all the pages but I would hazard a guess the activity in Aug/Sept/October correlates with more people having this information on the media so therefore more people looking for and filling in reports -

14 July 2012 Ben Linden, 24, is killed while surfing near Wedge Island, 180km north of Perth. A witness who tried to help said the shark swam away with the body.
31 March 2012 Peter Kurmann, 33, is taken in south-western WA while diving in the Port Geographe Marina. His brother, who was diving with him, tried to fight off the shark with a knife.
22 October 2011 George Thomas Wainwright, 32, an American tourist, sustains horrific injuries and dies while scuba diving off Rottnest Island, near Fremantle.
10 October 2011 Bryn Martin, 64, disappears at Perth’s Cottesloe Beach and is presumed a shark-attack victim. Only his damaged Speedos were found.
4 September 2011 Kyle Burden, 21, is taken by a shark while bodyboarding with friends at Bunker Bay, near Dunsborough, about 300km south of Perth.

So my guess is people were still ''worried'' in those following months and really jumped on the shark alarm website in greater numbers - I went back to 2009 and saw sightings from all over Aus listed. The peak reporting seems to be around the fatals. Fatals not in the news, less people jumping on the reporting band wagon.

Again, it is a public site that the public have access to if they want to report a sighting - not the CSIROs tracking program. If people use that website to decide they will or will not go to the beach, fine, up to them. The percentage of people who use that website to make decisions is not something I can answer...Ive never checked it before going to the beach. Im a fan of sharks - that site will not deter me from entering the water. When I go down and the fisheries dept have their guy sitting there and a beach closed sign up, then I cannot enter the water. When beaches are closed by fisheries (in the case lately of the whale carcasses on the beach) the information is broadcast over the media. Big sharks and lots of them are part of life here, and Im glad about that. I dont think the target audience is divers, if you check most of the reports on that site are from surfers or fishermen.

So, in short, the answer is no, that is not what the public use for tracking sharks - the CSIRO and Fisheries dept track sharks and provide that information to the public when risk assessment meets the criteria for media announcing

The other link I posted is what the OPs question relates to, The Tagging program - Extension of the shark monitoring network is one source of information at a scientific level, the shark alarm site is simply an illustration of how we are involving the public.

 

[wahlaoeh]

You should have. You can't possibly come to a valid conclusion in terms of an emerging trend, or the actual impact of shark tagging, based on comparing just two years.

I will later when I have more time but I was just replying to Wingy's earlier response that the gap in this year was due to the colder winter months which I don't agree.

He was the one that pointed out that the shark alarm website is use for surfers and families to have a sense of security in Australia to prevent shark attacks.
Two years of data is a lot worth and if new information is not constantly updated. What is the use of having such website?
I'm interested to know the actual correlation (if any) of these shark alarm sightings versus tagged sharks.

---------- Post added October 26th, 2013 at 01:41 PM ----------

I would hazard a guess the activity in Aug/Sept/October correlates with more people having this information on the media so therefore more people looking for and filling in reports

My sentiments exactly!!! When someone cry shark, then the media/government/public will react spontaneously. When the wind is down, then the spontaneity dies until the next occurrence.

I think the topic here is about tagging sharks and if this is necessary when certain methods used can harm the sharks. Wingy, thanks for your participation in this discussion. I hope more people (scientists/researchers/ shark lovers/haters etc) can contribute...

 

[Wingy]

For the record, another shark contributed today 4m shark bites diver's fins - The West Australian

 

[Arubandi07]

Familiarize yourself with the basics of statistics, and you'll realize that in this particular context your approach of comparing one year's data to the following year's is totally insufficient, and therefore the 'result' inadequate as a supporting factor for your position.