As Dr Karl Kruszelnicki once said:
For every person eaten by a shark, 300,000 sharks are eaten by people. Sharks must think about that a lot.
The Australian State of Western Australia (WA) has signed over 300 sharks up to Twitter. The program sees sharks tagged with gadgets that, when they come close to floating monitors located near popular beaches, detect the beasts' presence. When a tracker-equipped shark does so, alerts about its location are piped into the …
Not sure of the veracity of this list but it seems pretty sound:
· Horse, pony or donkey – 77 deaths
· Cow, bull or bovine – 33 deaths
· Dog – 27 deaths
· Kangaroo – 18 deaths
· Bee – 16 deaths
· Shark – 16 deaths
· Snake – 14 deaths
· Crocodile – 9 deaths
· Ostrich or emu – 5 deaths
· Others, including fish, sheep, goats, camels, cats and jellyfish – 39 deaths
There is a reason why "Crocodile" is so far down that list: the vast majority of deaths from crocodile attacks remain unconfirmed and so don't get counted in the statistics. To confirm the death you need either multiple witnesses to the attack (sometimes this happens) or human remains to examine (this never happens). Crocodiles are very very good at killing, and will do so at every opportunity.
I wonder if deaths caused by Huntsman spiders all get counted in the road death figures? They hide above the car's sun visor, and when you flip it down you get a huge hairy spider land in your lap... try not to panic yourself into oncoming traffic!
More people die from hippo attacks than from shark attacks.
But honestly, the West Australian (WA) government must think that the average citizen is stupid or something. What they are calling a beach safety program where they kill any shark 3m or bigger that comes within 1km (1093 yards) of the beach is nothing more than a PR program to try and resurrect the fading tourist industry. They are killing endangered species of sharks amongst those sharks. One of the major issues about this new pogrom is that they are using baited drum lines approximately 1km from shore. So those sharks that would not necessarily come within 1km of the shoreline will now come swimming in looking for that tantalising odor in the water and the government will point to the numbers of large sharks they are catching as a fear exercise to prove that their pogrom is working.
They advertise that it is for your safety when there is an average of 1.1 persons/year killed by sharks in WA. More people in WA die from cancer, heart disease, alcohol related disease and car accidents than from shark attacks, but you dont see the current government trying to stamp those things out.
There are 2.5 million people who live in WA and out of those, approximately 2 million people live within 1 hours drive of a beach. You have more chance of getting king hit in the Northbridge restaurant and nightclub area than you would have of getting attacked by a shark.
The most dangerous animal in Australia... a politician with an agenda.
Have to agree with you. I grew up in Florida in the Sixties and Seventies. Back then it was common to have small planes towing banners over the coast. Somebody got the bright idea of having them look for sharks as a warning system. The problem was , there were always sharks there. Most of the time there were sharks between the swimmers and the shore.
The idea was quickly shelved.
Oh come on. Basically every swimming beach in the country is shark netted anyway, so as a swimmer the figures of attacks is even lower then that said in the article. The attacks that happen tend to happen to surfers because they're outside of the shark nets or at beachs where the water is too rough/not suitable for swimmers and so arent netted.
Simpler and more humane solution, spend some f%&king money educating Aussies and tourists that the only safe place to swim is at patrolled beaches, and on those beaches to swim between the flags. Guess what, then there would be no frigging shark attacks and a whole bucket load less drownings and near drownings as well!
@ lglethal
I take it you dont actually live in Australia do you?
There are a grand total of 51 netted beaches in Australia... all of them in NSW (and apparently most of the sharks netted are on the "inside" of the nets. QLD uses the good old fashioned and reliable drum lines (which the WA government are proposing on using) and they havent really solved the whole shark attack issue. In WA, the coast line is actually fairly straight for the length of Perth and unless you want to stretch shark netting from North Fremantle (Port Beach) to about 45km north (Yanchep) and from the other side of Fremantle harbour all the way to the other side of Mandurah (the Dawesville Cut) it just isnt feasible to do it.
Also... your idea of only swimming at patrolled beaches... I think that there are a grand total of 3 in WA... maybe going as high as 5. Some of the better beaches also double as surf beaches so there are always going to be people on boards, acting like seals, outside of the flags anyway.
While your thoughts have some merit... in practicality, they are full of shit.
@Dramoth, actually I am Australian (from Syd), although I'll admit that I dont live in Aus anymore.
If what you say about there being only 3 patrolled beaches in WA, then surely THAT is where the money being spent on helicopters, baiting, and shark killing should be being spent! Lifesavers are damn good at there job and not normally that expensive (considering how much a helicopter costs to run per hour, you get a damn site more lifesavers for the same cost!). And they'll save a hell of a lot more lives then killing a few sharks which may or may not be tempted by a swimmer...
quote: "So because something is rare, don't bother about it? A politician who does something about a perceived threat, in order to safeguard $(tens of millions) of tourist money, is definitely not stupid."
I think I'd rather they spent the money on reduction of the 1 in 3362 chance that I'll drown while swimming there, rather than the 1 in 292525 chance that I'll get scoffed by a shark while swimming there. Prioritising the one that I'm 87 times more likely to die from while participating in the same activity sounds to me like the sensible choice to spend a limited budget on. Prioritising the one that claims far less lives annually does indeed sound like the stupid option to me.
This is classic political maneouvering: spend money on the one that makes you look good, not the one that is actually the most pressing issue.
"Australia: don't worry about the sharks, you're 90 times more likely to drown instead :)"
_1,193 people died on Australia's roads in 2013_
33,561 US road deaths in 2012 (2013 data not in yet)
USA! USA! USA!
// scary high number -- perhaps we should get more agressive about DUIs?
// does not worry about being shark lunch, but does try hard not to look like a seal when swimming
My wife went trekking/camping in Banff a few years ago. All the second night she was hearing animal noises by the tent, and as there had been a fatal bear attack 2 days previously she was justifiably nervous.
The following morning as they were packing up to move on she realised why there had been so much overnight attention. She had forgotton to eat her salmon sandwiches and they were still in the bag inside her pillowcase where she originally stored them...
That is all.
quote: “... has a 1 in 3,362 chance of drowning at the beach and a 1 in 292,525 chance of being killed by a shark in one's entire lifetime.”
What's the chance of being killed by a shark in someone else's lifetime? Or, perhaps, what are the chances of being killed by a shark in only half of your lifetime?