Frequent shark attacks

Shark attacks are seemingly more frequent these days. Hawaii, for example, didn't really see many attacks on humans until "very recently".

Identifying the cause may not be so easy, but I'd love to hear feedback.

The way I see it, there could be several reasons for this. In fact, I find it difficult to dismiss any of the following:
- Less food in the Ocean, sharks are turning to a "secondary" food source (humans).
- More humans playing in the water could bring casualties to a higher %.
- Definitely a rise in kayak-fishing, where sharks are now associating kayaks with fresh and delicious food aboard.
- More humans, more housses, and more roads are probably contributing to amazing "toxic" runoffs that's killing smaller fish. In turn, "sick" or "unhealthy" sea life is attracting sharks closer to shore. That can't be good for nearby swimmers / paddlers.

One thing is for sure: the number of shark attacks is alarming.

Solutions?
If I am right, we would have to "fix" some of the problems listed above. Getting raid of sharks or reducing shark population is (in my opinion) the LAST THING we should consider.

The bright side?
Seemingly, the Western coastal waters of France (Atlantic Ocean) and the Southern coastal waters of France (the Med) are not seeing any attacks.

Not so bright side?
Nothing is immune, and if we don't do something, the day will come when sharks will move in to otherwise "spared" areas.

Food for thoughts...


IMAGE CAPTION:
I'd rather be paddling a surfski

Good post, Ludovic.. What is the meaning of the photo and the caption? You don't mean SUP paddlers are always in the water like this? Or do You mean surfski's footprint looks more like a huge fish and so less likely to be bitten?

I love Stand Up Paddling... however, the image is more about what you don't necessarily want to be doing in shark infested waters.

On a different note: have you guys ever heard about the most important paddling stroke? The BRACE? 2017 may be the year that you want to nail your brace with perfection. It makes shark bumping a little easier to manage.

So there you have it:
First, I make fun of one of my favorite sports (SUP)
Second, I mock my cousin who's swimming next to his board.
Third, I remind people that the most important paddling stroke is the Brace.

To answer your question...
I'd rather be scuba diving, on a board, or on a ski... rather than being wadding around shark infested waters - but heck, maybe it's just me.

This was taken from the Genius Surfski Facebook page. According to the article, it was on April 22 and no one was hurt....at least physically.

photofr wrote: Shark attacks are seemingly more frequent these days. Hawaii, for example, didn't really see many attacks on humans until "very recently".

Sorry Photofr, but Hawaii historically had tons of attacks. The Polynesians have literally thousands of stories about various shark attacks. Some of the sharks even became famous for eating people and/or up to destroying canoes.

Statistically the attack % was much higher before people started hunting sharks. The only change was that sharks were later heavily hunted. The hunting has stopped in the last 20 years, and the attacks are now returning to levels as they would be before. People in California and Hawaii are going to poop themselves when these juveniles come back and start eating people. Reunion Island is a perfect example of what a normal shark population with people in the water looks like. Hawaii, California, SA and Australia will just be bigger examples of the same.

imo, the only realistic solution to reduce attacks, if thats what people want, is to cull the sharks. People take enough out of the ocean from all species that we already do the shark's job anyways. Many people don't want to hear it, but the reality is that even if all sharks went extinct, the ocean would likely be fine if seal/sea lion hunting were also legalized. Humans take so much from the ocean that its a balanced situation.

davgdavg wrote:

photofr wrote: Shark attacks are seemingly more frequent these days. Hawaii, for example, didn't really see many attacks on humans until "very recently".

Sorry Photofr, but Hawaii historically had tons of attacks. The Polynesians have literally thousands of stories about various shark attacks. Some of the sharks even became famous for eating people and/or up to destroying canoes.

Statistically the attack % was much higher before people started hunting sharks. The only change was that sharks were later heavily hunted. The hunting has stopped in the last 20 years, and the attacks are now returning to levels as they would be before. People in California and Hawaii are going to poop themselves when these juveniles come back and start eating people. Reunion Island is a perfect example of what a normal shark population with people in the water looks like. Hawaii, California, SA and Australia will just be bigger examples of the same.

imo, the only realistic solution to reduce attacks, if thats what people want, is to cull the sharks. People take enough out of the ocean from all species that we already do the shark's job anyways. Many people don't want to hear it, but the reality is that even if all sharks went extinct, the ocean would likely be fine if seal/sea lion hunting were also legalized. Humans take so much from the ocean that its a balanced situation.

Davegdaveg:
Seems like you are saying that culling sharks / hunting sharks has stopped in Hawaii since 1997 (or there about). However, there may be some innaccuracy with your statement because:
- Hawaiian residents do not typically hunt sharks, mainly because Hawaiians have a huge respect towards sharks.
- the word 'CULL' has not been used once in my presence while living in Hawaii for 30 years.
- Hawaii is near the top regarding controversies and hunting sharks.

Ref.: "historically, Hawaii had tons of shark attacks"
I am unclear as to where you get your facts about Hawaii. However, from personal experience (and not behind a desk) this is just untrue.

Hawaiian waters used to be super safe.
Loss of human life in HI (due to sharks) was pretty much unheard of.
Some attacks occurred, but even then, they were super rare and highly provoked (free diver trailing bloody fish in the water for miles, etc.).

You'd call Hawaii being shark-infested waters, but I would have called HI as a healthy marine life.

Native Hawaiians knew a thing or two about balance - on land and in the water. Native Americans also had it down to an artform. Us white people come up with inaccurate statistics taken out of context in order to justify surpressing other species.

Seriously, when you go to Montana, to you go out killing every single Grizzly bears so that you can feel safer while hiking? Then why remove sharks?

Hiking in MT, swimming in FL, surfing in CA, surfski paddling in South Africa all have one thing in common: recreation.

Perhaps, we should look at ourselves first, and re-evaluate our actions on this plannet before destroying another specy.

I agree with Ludovic, we need to respect their domain and not infringe on it for our benefit. Living on the west central coast of Florida, shark attacks are rare. We don't have the likes of Great White's here but do have aggressive sharks that can inflict a lot of damage. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time can turn bad real quick regardless of what species you encounter.

The mindset here is, don't be in the open water in the dawn or dusk. That being said, regardless of what species is or is not aggressive, these creatures should be treated as extremely unpredictable. Like the picture I posted earlier, it would have not been covered beyond the local news. With social media, we are exposed to more news than ever before, so it could be a matter of more easily obtained news exposure than actual hard statistics.

The safest thing to do is paddle in groups. That way only the slowest one gets eaten. If you buy into evolution it'll be the natural course of survival of the fittest.

photofr wrote:
Davegdaveg:
Seems like you are saying that culling sharks / hunting sharks has stopped in Hawaii since 1997 (or there about). However, there may be some innaccuracy with your statement because:
- Hawaiian residents do not typically hunt sharks, mainly because Hawaiians have a huge respect towards sharks.
- the word 'CULL' has not been used once in my presence while living in Hawaii for 30 years.
- Hawaii is near the top regarding controversies and hunting sharks.

Ref.: "historically, Hawaii had tons of shark attacks"
I am unclear as to where you get your facts about Hawaii. However, from personal experience (and not behind a desk) this is just untrue.

Hawaiian waters used to be super safe.
Loss of human life in HI (due to sharks) was pretty much unheard of.
Some attacks occurred, but even then, they were super rare and highly provoked (free diver trailing bloody fish in the water for miles, etc.).

You'd call Hawaii being shark-infested waters, but I would have called HI as a healthy marine life.

Native Hawaiians knew a thing or two about balance - on land and in the water. Native Americans also had it down to an artform. Us white people come up with inaccurate statistics taken out of context in order to justify surpressing other species.

Seriously, when you go to Montana, to you go out killing every single Grizzly bears so that you can feel safer while hiking? Then why remove sharks?

Hiking in MT, swimming in FL, surfing in CA, surfski paddling in South Africa all have one thing in common: recreation.

Perhaps, we should look at ourselves first, and re-evaluate our actions on this plannet before destroying another specy.

1) I live in Hawaii. If you've never heard anybody talk about the culls of the 50s-70s maybe you are a bit out of touch? The people love to talk story and shark story is always popular. They culled sharks because of an increase in attacks. This is all factual and if you haven't heard of it, then you need to do more research or talk to some of the older uncles. After the culls began, the attacks virtually went away.

2) You are completely wrong about Polynesians not hunting sharks out of respect. Its true they respected sharks, but they also caught and killed them whenever they could. This was for their "mana", and all for their natural resources like teeth (for weapons), food, etc. Some people didn't hunt them because they believed that the sharks were their ancestors, but this belief went for all animals depending on who the family believed they were descended from.

The only marine life they didn't hunt were dolphins, whales, and some species of reef fish. Like I said, there are literally thousands of stories about sharks eating people. It was well known that October was the worst month.

Shark attacks declined in the 1900s because of increasingly effective hunting. Less sharks=less attacks. Its that simple.

It is true that the time for hunting each particular kind of fish was well established and hunting out of season or other kapu things could get you killed. There was no season for sharks, however, which was year-round. Regardless, the highly imaginative concept that "native" cultures (nobody is truly native anyhow, including native Americans) had some sort of mythical balance and did not exploit the environment is a total fallacy. The Polynesians brought pigs, rats, and a large number of non-native plants to Hawaii in order to survive. Who knows how many species they killed off?

All cultures of man have historically exploited their environments to the maximum sustainable level and beyond as much as capable by their technology. The native Americans used horses and firearms, etc. Each people use anything they can. There is no, nor was there ever, a sense of not maximizing survival chances because of some sort of cosmic balance. Never happened ever.

I think they legally stopped the hunting of sharks in the 1990s and the last state sponsored cull was 1976. Before the 90s shark fishing was still popular, especially because it helped keep commercial fish from getting taxed.

All predators kill threats and competition the most they can, just like all other animals do so. To think otherwise is complete ignorance.

Our place as stewards and/or the right to kill is a highly ambiguous and gray zone that I won't enter. Each opinion is as valid as the next.

My only point is that the cause of more shark attacks is more sharks and absolutely nothing else. If people want to stop the attacks, they need to kill the sharks. Like I said, whether or not that killing is justified, I won't enter into.

REF.:
My only point is that the cause of more shark attacks is more sharks and absolutely nothing else. If people want to stop the attacks, they need to kill the sharks. Like I said, whether or not that killing is justified, I won't enter into.
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"Absolutely nothing else" and you are not willing to even explore alternatives?
You are not even going to question your behavior?

Come on... I used to drive down Hanauma Bay. Today, things are different: you'll find a paved parking lot that can accommodate 1000's of cars. The runoff of the road is so bad but doesn't even come close to the layer of suntan lotion we find on the water surface.

You still place the sharks at fault, 100%?

Yeah, perhaps I am a little out of touch... with humans. However, perhaps you need to spend a little more time on the water, in the water, AND UNDER WATER to better understand.

Uhh, yaaa, I still place the sharks at blame. Any person with even a general experience with sharks in the water can say that they can "see" you from a hell of a lot further away than you can see them.

That's to say that even though there are more people in the water, the difference is really only that there are more sharks. If there were 1 person per 1,000m2 of water, its the same as if there were 40 people per 1,000m2. The sharks can detect both equally. The shark is no more likely to be attracted to 100 people in WaiKiKi than 1...

In fact, anyone who's actually had an interaction with a shark knows that the more people there are around, and the more people that apparently are aware of the shark, the more skittish is the shark. More people in the water is NOT more attraction for the sharks, despite what some people would like to claim. Its actually less imputes for an attack in most conditions.

I've never said whether I support hunting them or not to reduce risk to humans. I only want to say that as a person who has had plenty of interactions with them, and as a person who is somewhat able to connect A to B, there are other sides to the story than the "we must kill ourselves to save the Earth"

You are missing the point – perhaps you need to read my original post instead of thinking that: "we must kill ourselves to save the Earth".

Perhaps what you thought I meant was:
Dragging is where’s it’s at - Don’t even attempt to fish wisely.
Keep fishing from a kayak.
Don’t bother at all with ANY environmental issues.
Keep putting that suntan lotion – just before going swimming (because we know it’s so healthy for everyone).
Enjoy the runoffs, anything from car oils to toxic waste – including sewer water.
Do not make a single effort – just blame the sharks.

For info:
1000’s of students baring my certification number.
I made a living being on the water, or in the water – interacting with pretty much every single living creature – including free diving off Kaena Point with a Tiger shark, paddling Makapuu with Hammerheads to the wazoo. Heck, I am more comfortable in the water than on land, but GO AHEAD: call me ignorant.

You are totally entitled to your beliefs. I am just asking that you keep an open mind to see if there's anything YOU COULD DO to make it a better place.

photofr wrote:
You are totally entitled to your beliefs. I am just asking that you keep an open mind to see if there's anything YOU COULD DO to make it a better place.

Just want to apologize if I misunderstood or came off bad- Your points taken and I'm sure you're a great waterman. If I'm ever on Oahu the first couple rounds are on me. Cheers.