"If there's no-one in the water, he turns to me and says, 'I'm thinking about it again', and I am too, to be honest."
It’s been a few years now since I made the observation that sooner or later there would come a time in Australia when you wouldn’t enter the water without a detailed examination of various Great White tracking apps and a feed from a perpetual fleet of shark-spotter drones.
It was neither a condemnation of the rapidly inflating stock of Great White sharks in Australian waters nor a celebration of the mighty animal’s startling population growth.
An observation, as I said.
What you make of this information depends, it seems on your political lean. If you think the occasional kill might chill ‘em out and you’re not opposed to netting beaches, fascist. Remove nets and let Great Whites flourish, libtard.
And, as if this needs to be said, the day when we’re pouring over our telephones looking at the location of the hundreds of tagged Great Whites more than surf cams is very close, maybe even here.
Recently, little Bowie Daly, a nine-year-old living in Tathra on the far South Coast of NSW, was hit by a suspected Great White, the shark latching not the tail of his board.
Ten years earlier at the same beach, a local swimmer, Christine Armstrong, was disappeared by a 12-foot Great White.
Her swimming cap, a pair of goggs and a “quantity of organic matter” was all that was recovered.
“It consumed her basically,” her husband Rob said.
A few days ago, Bowie Daly got back in the water propelled by Surfaid’s Make a Wave campaign where surfers surf every day for a month. Bowie said he was thrilled to be back in the ocean but “If it’s murky water and there’s no-one out, I’m a bit scared. If it’s clear water and there’s a few people out, then I’m fine. Sometimes I’m scared, sometimes I’m not.”
His Dad Simon Daly told the national broadcaster, “If there’s no-one in the water, he turns to me and says, ‘I’m thinking about it again’, and I am too, to be honest,” he said.
About the same time Bowie was getting back into surfing, more than a thousand surfers paddled out to honour surfer Mercury Psillaksi, twin brother of the noted shaper Mike Pskillakis, who was killed by a 15-foot Great White on September 6.
Recently, Australian surfers were advised by a university research team to start wearing Kevlar wetsuits to offset the Great White’s population boom.
“A lot of the teeth on Great White sharks…have these really sharp, pointed edges and serrated edges,” researchers pointed out.
As mentioned in that story, the tests were well timed. Since Great White sharks were listed as vulnerable in 1999 and afforded government protection in Australian waters, there has been a 773% increase in Great White attacks on surfers.
RIP, Zac, Paul Tadashi, Rob, Mani, Mark, Tim, Simon, Nick, Cameron, Jevon, Paul, Nick, Jarrod, Peter, Sam, Simon, Tod, Khai, Lance, Ken, Bradley, Geoffrey, Brian, Nicholas, Kyle, Bryn, George, Peter, Ben, Chris, Jay, Ben, Doreen, Laeticia, Gary, Andrew, Paul, Steven, Mercury.
Often forgotten by many in the ‘it’s their territory/ more chance of being killed by a coconut’ crew. Horrific deaths and trauma for others. Mate of mine had his arm ripped off & said the same thing: One minute you’re sitting/paddling in a serene setting, next it’s like being in a war zone.
Considering the digital age we live in now, it think this is redundant
Considering the oceans are going to be absolutely fucked up over the next 50 years and every second person in the western world loves sushi and champagne, I can’t understand how we are so worried about netting; and my dumb fuck thinking can’t get around the fact we protect the apex but not the underling
Also I’ll grant you the rules of debate and being specific. So let’s be honest about the gun tech when the 2nd Amendment was written. Say it: front loading musket. So fuck off with justifying kids getting shot because people need to compensate for a small dick and have been brainwashed by the NRA.
You think the kids being shot give a shit?
Showed up at one of the sharkiest waves in Oz this arvo and it was pumping with no one out.
I got about 30 mins in before the paranoia got too much.
Paddling and duckdiving was the worst.
Nw?
You used to shrug it off
Thank god you clarified that, it made all the fucking difference. The point is that American kids are being shot in schools on the regular and you are debating the gun type. Who gives a fuck what type of gun it is, that’s not the point. It’s the easy access.
I used to feel sorry for Americans but I’ve come to realise they love their guns more than their kids. Sad and pathetic.
No, the left loves their politics more than kids. Israel had a school shooting in the 70’s… one. The answer is quite easy (and it’s not expecting teachers to protect the school- though they should carry if they choose). The left doesn’t want to solve the issue, school shootings really help their anti-gun efforts.
This is not a left right issue. In Australia after the Port Arthur shooting in 1996 it was the Liberal Party (right wing conservatives) that introduced the strict gun laws we have in place now that have mostly prevented any mass shootings since. Nothing will ever change in America.
We also allowed gay marriage, which Gilard opposed.
The Liberals didn’t “allow” it. There was a postal survey where 62% of Australians said YES and the Liberal government at the time agreed to introduce legislation on the back of the community sentiment and pressure. By the the time the survey was conducted, Gillard had left politics, she was in favour of it.
Yeah, when she was in power she did not allow the survey, because she did not believe in gay marriage and had no problem saying that
True. It was curious at the time as she was quite progressive on most things but I guess seeing that she was up against Abbott and he was very anti marriage equality, Gillard may have thought she could neutralize the issue as a wedge that Abbott could exploit.
It’s done now and none of the doom and gloom nonsense that Bernardi, Abbott, Abetz, Morrison et al carried on with have come to pass. We’ve just had lots more parties, a good thing.
Lol and look at them now, literally carpet bombing Gaza.
yeah those Persian carpets seem to be creating a lot of problems in Gaza….
So only people that understand firearms can have a valid opinion on school shootings?
I think the subject matter is kids getting shot, not the terminology of the firearm used.
Heavy. Here it’s not the sharks the school age kids worry about, but being shot by automatic guns as they sit in history class. World’s all fucked up, and seems we can’t do a thing about it.
You can relax, as I see they’re starting to arm Teachers in the States now.
God bless AmeriKKKa.
AmerAK47 ?
Underpaid, overworked teachers. This is sure to go well.