Surfing Waves

Please help me with my petition. Shark attacks are becoming more and more common and environmentalists are doing nothing about it. They are blasting people like Kelly Slater for helping to advocate for the victims of sharks specifically the recent attack off of Reunion. Please help my petition get to 100 signatures or more because we all know as surfers that shark attacks are not something to be forgotten about.
Thank You!!

https://www.change.org/p/barack-obama-h ... responsive

Interesting reads:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-n ... 180957498/

http://www.honolulumagazine.com/Honolul ... particle=3

http://oceana.org/sites/default/files/r ... FINAL1.pdf

Given what our tracking and growth rate studies have shown, we can state that, in order for any culling operation to have any chance of success at reducing shark bite frequency, it would require a huge, costly and continuous fishing effort that (even if feasible) would result in an unacceptable perturbation of our marine ecosystem. And, as pointed out above, even this would not guarantee that shark bites will not occur.

BTW Steve, I am not with you on this..........and I say that as a surfer, waterman and lover of the ocean.

It's there place and will continue to be there place we are just guest's and will continue being guest's forever

Hi Steve , I appreciate what you are thinking of. A couple of points need to be made many hundreds of thousands of sharks are taken each year cruelly for shark fins, the shark is caught and its fins are taken, the alive but unable to swim shark is dropped back in the water to drown.
The areas where this happens the ecosystem of the ocean is damaged. Similarly when an area is overfished sharks turn to other food.
Culling is not the answer.
Also you need to know President Obama can't help you , he is no longer President, and the Donald has other things on his mind.
Big things incredible things so many incredibly big things.

We are having a lot of shark attacks on the mid to far north coast of NSW, netting , tagging , drone and aerial patrols are spotting the sharks, the netting killing other seagoing critters, dolphins, turtles dugongs and others. Has it slowed the shark attacks NO!.

Your motive is sound the methods and money to achieve any result could be better spent on other areas of human welfare. My opinion, fact might be somewhat different.

jaffa1949 wrote:Hi Steve , I appreciate what you are thinking of. A couple of points need to be made many hundreds of thousands of sharks are taken each year cruelly for shark fins, the shark is caught and its fins are taken, the alive but unable to swim shark is dropped back in the water to drown.

Actual estimates are even higher than this....insanely high; makes "culling" seem like an afterthought considering the current finning genocide situation......also makes light of the mere 100 signatures you're targeting - 1 signature for culling per 1 million/annum currently slaughtered sharks........mull that one:
http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/20 ... rotection/

I'd rather stop surfing then sign on to killing sharks. Thank goodness for environmentalists! Keep in mind what life was like before environmentalists blessed us with their insights.

Pollution from copper factories in Cornwall, England. http://media.gettyimages.com/photos/ind ... d587493886

Consider too cars kill more than sharks, and the man who put lead in petrol to stop engines knocking killed the biggest number of people on the planet! Finally unleaded petrol has dominance.1

Another link; this one stating that due to finning practices, many species of sharks are already on the endangered species list and could go extinct in the next few years:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ation.aaas

Here's one from Stab Magazine which sounds like it was on the OP's reading list:http://stabmag.com/news/fleshin'/


Last one is from environmentalists that are doing "nothing":
https://greenfuture.io/animals/shark-attacks


PS....2015 was apparently billed as a record year for shark attacks worldwide....98 attacks, 6 fatalities.



98 attacks, 6 fatalities.....WORLDWIDE


...hardly an epidemic or reason to panic.....definitely not a reason to call for culls, keeping in mind that the Chinese market will most likely be the end of several species of sharks in the not too far distant future.




I am going to go hug a tree now.

Wha?....

billie_morini wrote:Wha?....

Indeed....

RinkyDink wrote:

billie_morini wrote:Wha?....

http://www.npr.org/2017/02/24/516709308 ... in-science

Tell you what, Rinky, I will continue to ignore you

Haven't we made a mistake of culling gray wolves out of fear/inconvenience only to be faced with a bigger damage from the population imbalance of the area ecology???

duplicate post

I am so against culling, but it really is a controversial thing. I mean, we use pesticides and poison to control the density of other animals all the time (I realize it's not exactly the same though). I understand it's another risk you take surfing, same as getting killed by a wave, but I think we need to attempt to minimize the risk in some way.

Does anyone have solutions for minimizing shark attacks? Are there certain conditions surfers can avoid where they are more of a risk (i.e. more sharks near the coast)? They don't have any natural predators right? Aside from humans, of course. Is it possible to monitor the number of sharks in areas to control numbers to a happy medium that protects people more, but doesn't disturb the ecosystem? Would this mean catching, tagging, and tracking ($$$)? Could we develop wetsuits with shark deterrent agents?

On another note, how cool is it to go by shark attack while surfing? Brutally painful, but you die doing something you love and what a bad ass way to go! kidding, not kidding.

Sharks are hunted by killer whales. Exterminating sharks seems to decrease shark bites. I think there are ways to decrease shark attacks and one thing is to be aware and look for them. If they are acting out of the ordinary then leave the water. I ran into a surfer who was wondering if sharks might be the reason no one was surfing where I was about to surf (sadly it was because there was no surf that would interest most surfers). However sharks are always out there. They probably all know me since I am out there quite often as well. but they don't usually come in close to me so when they do I leave the water (usually). As a kid I grew up swimming and skim boarding and bodysurfing at that beach. They used to hukilau or bring a net from the beach out into the water surrounding a school of fish and then back to shore. Then a bunch of people would pull the net up onto the beach along with the school of fish and usually at least a couple of sharks. Every single time they did it there was at least one shark and most often more than one. It's their territory. So another thing that can be done is to not splash around like a wounded animal and make strong calm motions. I guess in the future we may have deterrents that are worn or the board itself. Of course Rachelle feel free to ignore this and increase your chances of dying gloriously

I guess the issue will get much worse as shark fin soups are getting less popular.

We have a shark detecting buoy off our local beach, works really well.
It only detects sharks that have been radio tagged ( in fairness only dangerous species are tagged).
But of course dangerous untagged anonymous sharks can swim through any time.

Next the buoy send a signal to a report which goes to an app, which tells your phone or tablet. so no help in the water. Might vaguely stop you from going in!

Just a footnote, politicians have caused more deaths than sharks, maybe a cull there would help.

Further note; the original poster is the only person who signed his petition

jaffa1949 wrote: Just a footnote, politicians have caused more deaths than sharks, maybe a cull there would help.

We need to build a wall, and make the sharks pay for it!!