How many fatal shark attacks to stop you diving

[Hank49]

Well, aren't YOU just the most macho bada$$ in the ocean? You kill, needlessly to make yourself feel in control. It's not like they are the best eating fish to spear. Their reproductive rate is so low that there is simply no justification for killing for recreation. To me, it does not make you a macho bada$$, it just makes you a sad excuse.....
They are not YOUR fish. BOOHOO that they are "semi aggressive".

Nope, I'm not the most badass. It seems you think you're a badass on SB though.
I do realize I'm in the water with badass animals who have no conscience. That's who they are. Again, one on one out there is cool. Read my last post. It's not killing a few big sharks that's the problem.

 

[drrich2]

Longlining, gill netting, dynamite fishing, open water FADs....high tech fishing.....that's what's hurting the marine life and shark populations.

With all that cutting into populations of a large apex predator, I'm thinking that further population reduction could cut into the gene pool and hurt them. A 'straw that breaks the camel's back' situation, at least potentially.

But in areas where there are lots of swimmers....kids...and some large white sharks are beginning to frequent the area, I have no problem with someone catching them.

If we were talking about specific individual sharks that were frequenting a beach, perhaps as part of a territory, I'd be more alarmed. Kind of like a large grizzly bear establishing a den just outside of a school playground. I am under the impression that in the real world this would play out as random wandering sharks just passing through on a rare basis, getting killed, when the odds of any given shark culled injuring a human being, or for that matter a life saved by that kill, are extremely minute.

Do we have any reason to believe some great whites take to routinely 'patrolling' specific beaches frequented by humans?

I realize they may patrol sea lion rookeries, but haven't heard this about human beaches.

Richard.

 

[Tigerman]

...
It's not killing a few big sharks that's the problem.

Well, no. The problem is that during a so-called culling to "prevent attacks" sharks are killed indiscriminately and without much concern for wether its "a few" or "all of them"..
The other problem is of course that some species theres only "a few" left of in the first place so the line between "a few" and "all of them" is very thin.

 

[CT-Rich]

I might point out that humans are the invasive animal when it comes to the ocean. Bull sharks might want to eat your lunch, but only because you came into their diner. I haven't heard any complaints about the poor lionfish of the being killed en mass. The way I see it, the bull sharks and whites should be culling us...

as for the capture and removal of sharks form beach areas, I once caught a wood chuch (a large American rodent) in my back yard... I drove him several miles from home and dumped him where I thought he would be happy and too far to find his way back. It took him about two days to get back into his burrow. Female whites have been tracked from South Africa to Australia, what makes you think that A) the shark off a Brisbane beach is going to stick around or could be transported far enough so that it wouldn't be back in its old haunt before the boat that released it was back at the dock.

We have been culling sharks by the 10s of millions. Eventually you will see a new apex predator take its place... I wonder how you will feel when you start seeing reports of divers and bathers being killed by schools of Humboldt squid.
[video=youtube;9Fkl312lldQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Fkl312lldQ[/video]

[video=youtube;5KpquVi423M]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KpquVi423M[/video]

 

[sunnyboy]

Just one, mine.

Bingo!

 

[Hank49]

I might point out that humans are the invasive animal when it comes to the ocean.

This is what I don't understand. Polar bears hunt on land and the sea. That's ok. But when we do it, we're invading. We're a smart mammal who made tools and can catch fish with them. We're just too greedy to manage it better. But so are all other animals.

 

[drrich2]

True, but other species in nature adapt very slowly over time, for the most part, and their prey species have time to adapt in turn. The technological innovation of humans, such as the development of the spear gun, enables huge gains in functional efficiency in very brief time frames, which native species cannot adjust to in a reasonable time.

Put another way, inland in ponds, lakes and rivers. 100+ Years ago our great grandfathers fished for bass, crappie, catfish and blue gill. Cut to the modern day. The equipment we have, bass boats, depth finders, fish finders, advances in rod & reels, bait, etc..., is much better. But bass, crappie, catfish and blue gill haven't advanced. In colonial days, a man shot at deer with a black powder firearm. Single shot, accuracy probably not the best. Today, you can nail one with a high-powered rifle that's much more accurate to begin with, and add a scope for further advantage.

In fact, today there are special hunting seasons for bows and muzzle loaders to offset the technological advantages.

The problem is not that killing & eating an animal is wrong; the problem is that there are so many of us and we are way too good at it!

Richard.

P.S.: Discussions about the prospects of native prey species & potential predators adapting to lion fish bring out similar concerns.

 

[Hank49]

True, but other species in nature adapt very slowly over time, for the most part, and their prey species have time to adapt in turn. .

Are you sure? When I got to Hawaii in 77 we would see the lesser blue heron or Auku as it was called, preying on our fresh water prawn ponds. They were only seen, as I see their large cousin the great blue doing here, wading on the edge of the ponds.

On my last trip to Hawaii I was helping my old buddy harvest a pond in Ka'a'awa valley and we saw the aukus swimming like ducks, out into the pond and catching the gambuzia (mosquito fish). My friend told me that started doing that just a few years ago. Evolution. In time I guess a new strain will have developed webbed feet.

And you're right. There's too many of us. How it will end? I hold out hope but it's going to be a challenge.

But I would bet the house that great whites will be here long after our kind is gone or changed.

 

[CT-Rich]

This is what I don't understand. Polar bears hunt on land and the sea. That's ok. But when we do it, we're invading. We're a smart mammal who made tools and can catch fish with them. We're just too greedy to manage it better. But so are all other animals.

Polar bears are subsistence hunters, humans don't hunt sharks to survive. We kill them by the millions as by-catch or for sport or we cut off the fins and dump 90% of the animal back in the ocean. Unlike bears who have evolved over millennia to catch seal and fish, we went from crude spears to floating factories a few thousand years. Finally, bears can't (or rather don't need to) understand their impact on the ecosystem. As a species, we have been triggering one of the great mass extinctions.

I doubt, from the dinosaurs perspective, they could have foretold the rise of mammals after a comet impact. I doubt we will be able to predict what will rise from our poorly planned extinction event. You might not like sharks, but squid might replace them as an apex predator. They breed a hundred times faster, grow to maturity in a few years, hunt in schools and are a much more aggressive against humans...

 

[drrich2]

My friend told me that started doing that just a few years ago. Evolution.

I think your example is one of ingenuity and learning, perhaps with some imitation by observers, rather than applying natural selection to a mutating gene pool to select for & thus modify the genetics of the population (evolution).

This is more practical for more intelligent creatures. We see it to various degrees; alligators have learned to recognize air boat motor sounds, some sharks & other creatures became conditioned to gathering for feeding by humans, etc...

A lot of what lion fish eat aren't intelligent enough to adapt that way. And the 'teaching moment' they might learn from is often fatal (plus, the camouflage is so good, prey that escapes may not know what happened!). Some fish you spear may learn to evade you, I suppose.

I saw a t.v. program where wildlife officers (if memory serves) shot a bear with a rubber bullet to drive it (painfully but safely) away from a human populated area. A bear is smart enough to be trainable. It might be nice if we could guard beaches that way, but I don't think the technology is there yet. So far we have shark nets that, like culling, exact a high price for what they do.

Richard.