Summer ‘Tis The Season For Sharks

It gets pretty crowded on Aussie beaches in summer, especially Bondi. Does the increase in shark encounters have something to do with more people enjoying the coast over summer? See this photo and more daily shots from Bondi at Aquabumps.

Summer means sun, sand, surf … and thousands more people in the water just cooling down on their holidays or crowding the waves in the surf. And it also seems that every summer there’s a spate of shark sightings and scary news stories. But so far 2012 seems to have taken the prize for sharkiness. And it’s all a little bit close to home…

On Tuesday 3 January a suspected tiger shark attacked a spear fisherman at Duranbah, perhaps the go-to beach for Gold Coast surfers. The shark reportedly bit the waterman’s flipper near the rock wall on the southern side of D-Bah, but he suffered no serious injuries. As there are two sets of rocks walls flanking the Tweed rivermouth at Duranbah, it’s not clear from the local news report if the shark was lurking near the regular hot-spot wave lineup off the north side of the wall, or on the river side.

Back in winter Mick Fanning was launching out of the waves near D-Bah's rock wall - we hope he wasn't trying to escape a shark. Photo: Adam Weathered.

And then on the evening of 4 January a surfer was bitten on the arm by a 1.8m shark while paddling at North Avoca Beach on the NSW Central Coast. He received a 5cm cut on his forearm and wrist but is expected to recover well.

While the president of the North Avoca Surf Lifesaving Club said “I’ve never known of a shark attack on North Avoca and I’ve been involved in the surf club for the past 20 years,” this morning more sharks were spotted nearby at Copacabana, Terrigal and Avoca beaches. The Westpac rescue helicopter sighted a pair of 4m beasts close to Copacabana shore at 7am and it is thought all the local shark activity is due to an abundance of baitfish in the water.

And do you think these Dunsborough fishermen asked Santa for a bigger boat after this incident during the Christmas break?

But it seems that shark sightings don’t just happen in the water: news has just surfaced of an Air New Zealand pilot on approach to Christchurch airport who reported an inflatable shark at several thousand feet on Boxing Day! It’s thought that a helium-filled remote-control shark balloon got loose from it’s normal indoor habitat and roamed the skies looking for prey.

A helium-inflated shark like one reported by a jet pilot on a flightpath to Christchurch Airport is tested by Press reporters Michael Wright,  Keith Lynch, and Marc Greenhill. Photo: DEAN KOZANIC/Fairfax NZ

And if you thought flying sharks were scary enough, how about real-life super-strong mutant sharks? Scientists have discovered that two distinct types of blacktip sharks have been mating and producing hybrid offspring along the Queensland and NSW coast. Usually it is rare for sharks to cross-breed, but the biologists believe that this is an evolutionary response to adapt to climate change whereby the hybrid sharks will be able to comfortably live in tropical warm and sub-tropical/temperate waters. The researchers found 57 hybrid blacktips along a 2000km stretch of ocean. Both species of blacktip grow to 1.4m normally, but before you get too worried about these “mutant man-eaters”, they are normally not dangerous to humans, and if you’ve ever bought flake at the fish and chip shop, you’ve most likely munched into some blacktip shark yourself.

The hybrid black tip shark. Picture: University of Queensland

So before we start seeing Dr Evil’s sharks with frickin’ laser beams (which might not just be confined to humourous science fiction if you believe this article), you can get some revenge on the toothy men in grey suits down at your local chippery.

Shark attacks, shark populations and how best to deal with them are always a pretty contentious issue amongst the surf community, and you can revisit articles here and here that drew a lot of heated comments.

UPDATE: This article looks at the other side of the coin, through the eyes of a young Byron Bay conservationist diver who is campaigning to save sharks from "finning". Whilst it would be hard for anyone to condone cutting shark fins off live sharks purely for shark fin soup, the sharks that give surfers the most nightmares, like great whites and tigers, are not hunted for their fins. But blacktips (and maybe even the mutant ones) as well as bull sharks, along with a handful of other species, are hunted by asian fishing trawlers.

But as you will see from Madison Stewart's video, it's all well and good to go diving with sharks when you can see what's coming at you and you're protected by a chain-mail suit ... it's a bit scarier when all that protects you from unseen razor-sharp teeth is a pair of boardshorts and a lump of fibreglassed foam!