Shark!!

 and Shark nets

 Shark!!   on Bondi beach!!

The siren wails continuously.

A shark has been sighted from the lifeguards lookout.

The alarm is raised. It doesn't take long for the surf to be cleared of people!

That is old news!

Shark nets have been in place at Bondi beach now since 1937. They are simply a straight, rectangular piece of metal net suspended between 2 buoys and anchored at either end, and the mesh in the shark nethas 50cm holes so that small fish can get through the net. They are placed 600 meters out from shore right across the bay, so no sharks can approach the beach.

Shark netsare a concern to environmentalists and conservation groups such as the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) though, who claim that smaller fish become entangled in the sharknet and die, and that sharks attempting to eat the smaller trapped fish in turn become entangled and die.

So some states in Australia have not laid shark nets across their beaches, and the numbers of shark attacks on humans in those states are significantly higher.

USA does not use shark nets on its beaches, and one wonders what the outcome from legal proceedings would be if some-one lost a limb to a shark!

Long-time surfer, Reuben Meerman, looked into a recent push to remove shark nets and found that it might be more an issue of public liability than public safety.

Shark attacks on humans, even without shark nets, are extremely rare – but often fatal.

Of the 370 species of sharks, there are 2 types which are found outside shark netsalong the east coast of Australia.

1)  Grey Nurse Shark.  These are ferocious-looking with a huge mouth under their bodies and rows of sharp teeth. Due to their fierce appearance, grey nurse sharks have been mistaken for other sharks that pose a much greater threat to humans. Large numbers of them were killed by recreational spear and line fishers and in shark control programs, numbers that have never really recovered. Currently the main danger to these sharks comes from accidental hooking during fishing.

It is thought that there are less than 500 of these species of sharks remaining along this coast, and the survival outlook for them is pretty grim. They are a protected species.

2) Great White Shark. These are the largest predatory fish in the ocean, on the top of the food chain, favoring mammals like sea lions and seals to humans, but are known to attack. While they are young, they are prey for larger sharks. They are colored white underneath to blend in with the light when seen from below, and charcoal-grey on their back to blend in with the seabed when seen from above.

Shark nets are not infallible, but they give swimmers a great feeling of security.

All sharks are feared, outside shark nets as well as inside shark nets.

Read about Wobbegongs

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