If you happen to be in New Zealand this week, the Auckland Museum will be performing a public autopsy on a 9 ft great white shark on Thursday, January 8, in hopes to raise shark awareness.
The autopsy, or necropsy as it’s officially known, will be carried out by Clinton Duffy of the Department of Conservation Marine Conservation Section and Tom Trnski, Marine Curator of the Auckland Museum.
The operation will examine the shark’s stomach contents, as well as take measurements of internal organs. The public are invited to view the autopsy and come face to face with the shark from 11am-1pm in the loading dock at the south-eastern corner of the Museum.
The attack happened in knee-deep water near Riversdale Beach on the Wairarapa coast on Friday. Laura suffered a deep 4-inch-long wound to her arm and smaller cut to her leg. Slipping into shock and bleeding heavily, she was driven to Riversdale where a rescue helicopter flew her to Wairarapa Hospital.
A New Zealand man (Nathan Maclure, 26) was adrift at sea for more than 30 hours after his jet ski broke down. Bummer. Not only was the weather nasty, but the dude was also visited by a few sharks before being spotted by a Russian boat about 8 miles off the South Island’s Canterbury coast on Saturday.
The shark alarms were blaring in Australia yesterday. Sharks were spotted lurking close to swimmers and sent people fleeing from the water at Coogee, Maroubra, Bronte and Tamarama.
During a routine boat patrol at Coogee, a 9-12 foot hammerhead shark was spotted heading for seven swimmers! The shark alarm was sounded and the swimmers high-tailed it outta there. The shark eventually swam away but was spotted again at Maroubra beach, where it was feeding on a large squid with another hammerhead shark. The alarm rang at that beach too, then officials chased the shark out to sea.
Several hours later, ANOTHER hammerhead was spotted at Bronte beach just a few hundred feet from the shore. Shark alarms sent swimmers fleeing the water… again.
A man is recuperating in the hospital after spearing himself in the groin with a speargun in Australia yesterday. Yeouch.
Greg Robertson, 25, was pushed onto the speargun after it got washed out of his hands by a wave. The 6 foot long spear pierced his inside upper thigh, just millimetres from his genitals (note girlfriend’s expression in 2nd pic) and femoral artery, and got lodged there.
The first time spear fisherman had been enjoying a day at the beach with his girlfriend Jacinta Fisher and some of their friends when the accident happened.
A chopper came to rescue Robertson. The spear was surgically removed that night. Hopefully, the dude (and his girlfriend) will make a full recovery.
Some smart sharky people did some tests and found out that a shark’s bite is not as powerful as we thought. Their main weapon is actually their sharp teeth, not their jaws. Huh?
Well, according to Dr. Huber, who lead the study, sharks can do a lot of damage simply because their teeth are so sharp and their jaws are so wide. However compared with mammals they have incredibly weak bites for their size.
Huber also went on to say A 20ft great white shark can ‘bite through anything that you come across.”
The woman who was skewered by a stingray while wading at Pohara Beach says she’ll swim in the sea again, but not at Pohara.
Maia Freeman was walking in waist-deep water at the eastern end of the beach when she suddenly felt “a sharp pain almost as bad as childbirth” on her right thigh.
“I tried to step backwards, but I felt it flapping against my leg. I really felt like I was being attacked,” she said. “I screamed at the top of my lungs, threw myself back so I was lying on the water and kicked like mad.
“When I saw all this blood coming out of my leg, I moved into the terror zone. It was so traumatic.”
And Maia wasn’t the only stingray victim in Golden Bay on Tuesday. Apparently, another guy got poked too.
