"Shark Hunted after horrific attack"

[VaB]

What gives? As far as I know, this isn't going to help.

Is Australia joining the US at the idiocy in gov't table?

Any Aussie's in the room? What do you think?

[Brent]

Sure let it live and have the whole local tourism economy killed this coming summer. It's the week before summer holidays there, do you think the local authorities need a large white pointer roaming up & down the coast - scaring whole droves of hotel renting, swimsuit buying, cafe eating, money spining tourists..... Especially as it has killed and could kill again. Any local authority would be negligent if they knowingly allowed it to be in their waters and it attacked again.

Time to be pragmatic, as a result of being heavily protected in Australian waters for about the last decade White Pointers are now multiplying in numbers unheard of before.
The compassionate ones who live far from white pointer areas will say "oh no, let the glorious beast live", we who live over here say well, that's abit like letting grizzly bears reproduce to dangerous levels in your well-used American national parks.

Same thing.

[VaB]

Interesting. I see you point about overpopulation and about tourism, my question is though, is it likely they will find the one shark in question and would it attack again if it were not killed?

Record numbers of sharks seems like it will make the one shark in question more difficult to find.

[deadite]

Well, I think it'll probably stay in the area, thinking there is food there.

Also, my argument for killing it, and I have many for not, is that it is nature for species to protect themselves. Humans are going to go after animals that are endangering them.

[surf patrol]

I heard the guy's father on the news earlier and he was basically saying it is just the sharks nature and don't go and hunt it down.

[Brent]

And the local media there are saying the shark is going to die, care of the local police etc...unless they can herd it successfully from the area.

there is no difference from this incident to any other involving any preditor animal, take a Lion in Africa haunting the outskirts of a small village, a mountain lion getting a taste of cheap easy food from rubbish bins in US parks & causing problems, or Polar Bears causing problems in the Artic Circle for indigenous peoples up there.

No difference. It just happens to be a trendy species at the mo.

[VaB]

I hear what you're saying about sharks being "trendy" and about the analogy to lions etc. Here, with lions not being so trendy, it'd be killed, probably pretty quick ( unless it's protected but even then) but that doesn't make it right.

What would make it right, is if this makes the animal more likely to attack others. If it's gotten a "taste" for people. As far as I know, there is no data on this so this is more speculation than anything.

Secondly, how are you gonna identify it?? Well, it's about 14ft long, it's got a big fin on its back, black eyes, white belly.....

If you could identify it, I would not be opposed to killing it but this seems indescriminate.

(For the record, I am also not opposed to killing for overpopulation).

[Brent]

no need to work out what shark it was, there have been media photo's in our papers of it being shadowed by fishing boast & Helicopters as they try & herd it back out to sea. It's just one shark out of thousands. How politically correct is all this stuff just now.

[VaB]

Well that's just as bad as killing one- I mean same story.

Great to hear everyone's thoughts.