Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
I had two very good instructors for my OW and AOW courses. Like most places, you get good divers and some that are not so good. We've been over this before Bob. Suffice to say that to the best of my knowledge I don't know of anyone who has died diving the swim throughs/caves in the areas I dive. We've had two divers recently die in fatal shark attacks. Which do you think presents the highest risk? The reactions I've seen to the two risks on this forum, ie. the perceived risk, is opposite to the actual level of risk indicated by the fatalities. Always remember. The best way to minimise risk is to eliminate the risk. That applies equally to cave diving as it does to man-eating sharks.
T
The question posed in the OP was, suppose this occurred in the region where you dive and the number of fatalities continued to escalate at this rate. At what point would you stop diving? How much risk would you tolerate? This is a question being asked by many divers in my area. It is a question that should be considered by tourists who travel to locations such as ours and dive.
To give the discussion a bit more perspective, the following is a summary of the total number of fatal shark attacks in Western Australia taken from the Shark Attack Files SAS.
Shark Attack File SAS World Wide international global Shark Attack File
Year..........Number......Fatalities...Shark
................Attacks
1800-1809.... 1............ NR......... NR
1810-1819.... NR.......... NR..........NR
1820-1829.... NR.......... NR..........NR
1830-1839.... NR.......... NR..........NR
1840-1849.... NR.......... NR..........NR
1850-1859.... NR.......... NR..........NR
1860-1869.... NR.......... NR..........NR
1870-1879.... 2............ 1............ NR
1880-1889.... 1............ NR.......... NR
1890-1899.... 3............ 2............ NR,NR
1900-1909.... 3............ 1............ NR
1910-1919.... 5............ 1............ NR
1920-1929.... 8............ 4............ NR,NR,NR,T
1930-1939.... 3.............NR.......... NR
1940-1949.... 7............ 2............ T,T
1950-1959.... 9............ 1............ T
1960-1969.... 26.......... 1............ W
1970-1979.... 5............ NR.......... NR
1980-1989.... 9............ NR.......... NR
1990-1999.... 11.......... 2............. T,W
2000-2009.... 30.......... 4............. W,W,W,W
2010-2014.... 24.......... 8............. NR,NR, W,W,W,W,W,W
Codes:
NR - None recorded
T - Tiger shark
W - White pointer
Number of attacks includes fatalities.
Note that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of fatal shark attacks since 1997 when the white pointer was first protected in this state and most of these attacks were by white pointers. Also note that we're not yet halfway through the latest 2010-2019 interval. Should the number of fatal attacks continue at the current rate we can expect at least another eight fatal attacks by the end of 2019 bringing the total to 16 for this interval.
My quick scan of the Shark File data suggests the rate of fatal attacks in our area (within 300 km of Perth as defined in the OP) is among the highest anywhere in the world. We had five fatal attacks in the space of twelve months in the past few years. It is likely this disturbing trend will continue without intervention.
The question posed in the OP was, suppose this occurred in the region where you dive and the number of fatalities continued to escalate at this rate. At what point would you stop diving? How much risk would you tolerate? This is a question being asked by many divers in my area. It is a question that should be considered by tourists who travel to locations such as ours and dive.
And there you have it. I knew it !!. Long blade fins even protect you from Great Whites !!
TODD Robinson says he didn't believe "all the hype" about sharks until he almost became the latest victim of an attack while diving for crayfish off Hillarys yesterday morning.
TODD Robinson says he didn't believe "all the hype" about sharks until he almost became the latest victim of an attack while diving for crayfish off Hillarys yesterday morning.
The attack comes just two weeks after Greg Pickering was bitten near Esperance while diving for abalone
Meanwhile, a diver in the South-West reported being "circled" by a shark at Meelup Beach, near Dunsborough. He reported the incident to Water Police just after 3.30pm.
Fisheries South-West manager Kevin Donohue said the man was spearfishing when he was approached by a white shark estimated to be between 3.5m and 4m long.