Shark Attack

Bit dissapointing that the shark will not be hunted down as it attacks humans once it will know it can do it again.

It's a wonder how a shark attack even makes the news considering how often you would have a workplace incident where a kid gets his leg ripped off! Why can't we see kids being carted to hospital from the workplace??

how many thousands a year would loose a leg at the workplace?

and yet we have a couple of shark attacks and the make front page when there is very little we can do about them, yet if the published the workplace incidents all the time them maybe would have the public pressure (voters pressure) to do something about it and start reducing the workplace toll.

Attack shark won’t be hunted down
4th December 2006, 6:45 WST

The Department of Fisheries has virtually ruled out capturing or killing the shark that severed a teenage surfer’s leg near Esperance.

Fisheries incident co-ordinator Tony Cappelluti said that even if search teams spotted a shark they would be unable to tell if it was responsible for the attack. White pointers were only killed if they were an immediate threat to beachgoers.

Fifteen-year-old Zachary Golebiowski was body surfing about 7.30 on Saturday morning at Wharton Beach, east of Esperance, when he was savaged by a white pointer estimated to be more than 4m long. The lower part of his right leg was bitten off during the attack.

A Fisheries officer and members of Esperance’s Surf Lifesaving group spent yesterday at Wharton Beach scouring the water for sharks. An aerial search was also conducted but no shark was sighted.

A decision would be made today on continuing the search but Mr Cappelluti stressed it was precautionary rather than part of a hunt for the shark.

He said the possibility that a shark would be killed after the savage attack was extremely remote. “They’re a protected species and unless we’re sure the shark has just been involved in an incident or was creating an immediate public threat (we wouldn’t make that choice).”

He said people should not panic. They were probably more likely to drown than be the victim of a shark attack but they should avoid swimming in the early morning, while bleeding or close to animal waste such as bait or whale carcasses.