Let's ignore the shark studies and be an idiot

Last week, off the beaches near Gordon's Bay, David Lilienfeld was attacked by a 4-5m Great White shark, while surfing. Sadly, his leg was bitten off, and David died from his injuries.

Blame was quickly placed upon a film crew, filming a shark documentary, Shark Men. Part of the filming process, involves shoving large quantities of chum (berley), which is a mix of chopped up fish and fish oil, into the water, to attract sharks, who have a very sensitive sense of smell. Their permit was quickly revoked by the Environmental Affairs Department.

Gregg Oelofse, the City of Cape Town's head of environmental policy and strategy also responded by wanting to see how viable it was to put shark spotters in the areas. (Shark Spotters began in 2004 to spot sharks and alert those in the water in time). Apparently, the water is deep close to shore, thus making it more difficult to spot sharks, so he is calling for an assessment as well as a public meeting to discuss the idea.
He added, that the main concern is safety and whether the community had a need for increased safety measures.

We will come back to that.

In Australia, a study has shown that due to human interaction with sharks, by way of cage diving and other activity using chum, shark behaviour has changed. It was found that shark's time their presence in the area, according to the times of the cage dives or other activity, as it usually works on a set time schedule.
However, it was also found that sharks remain in an area longer when chumming and teaser baiting is introduced. The number of sharks had also doubled.
World wide studies have confirmed that when sharks are attracted to areas, for the sake of tourism, many problems occur. Included in this may be an increase in aggression, changes in predation, sharks relying on the teaser baits as a food source, as well as increasing the number of other fish that feed on the chum.  This is of course just a short summary, to get my point across.

Now back to our not so wise owl, Mr Oelofse. Despite the above study, showing the rather obvious likelihood of chumming being a cause of sharks in the area and those sharks posibly becoming being very aggressive (as was reported in this particular attack), Mr I put Safety First, wisely states 'We stand by our view that there is no link between chumming and the attack.' He further babbles, 'We are concerned by so called shark experts trying to form a link.' What a tool. If these so called 'shark experts' study sharks and their behaviour and they identify a link, why is this feeble minded fool trying so hard to deny it. He is obviously more concerned about tourism than safety. Perhaps he has shares in the cage diving industry.
If safety was a 'main concern' as Pinocchio is trying to sell to us, then even a slight link, would be enough to cause concern. Instead he voices concern that these 'experts' are spreading 'disinformation' and that there is 'absolutely no evidence to suggest it (chumming) increases the risk to surfers in the area.'

Oh, the so called idiots happen to be The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization.

It is idiots like that who will cause further attacks due to either his pure ignorance, or whatever other reasons he uses to deny the evidence of a scientific study, by 'so called experts'. I am hoping that by additional safety measures, Mr Lets Ignore Evidence, is not thinking of shark nets, that kill marine life, including poor sharks.

It is simple, accept the evidence from people who know more than you dear Mr Oelofse. Use shark spotters. Conduct your own study to prove there is no link. Otherwise, it is time to have a serious link at the cage diving industry and make some hard, human and shark life saving decisions.

However, we need to remember that sharks are precious. It is their ocean, we are visitors. As such, we need to accept the risks and not make sharks out to be human savaging machines, which they are not.