Surfers may have to give up the traditional black wet suit if they want to reduce their chances of being bitten by a shark. New research has shown that sharks are color blind, so a bold black screams ‘pick me’, while a delicate shade may not.
“Although they are sensitive to certain parts of the spectrum more than others, they don’t distinguish colours,” says Nathan Hart of Western Australia University. “So brightness, contrast, shades of grey is what they see.” International figures show the majority of attacks happen to people in black wetsuits.
Research in the 60s suggested sharks were attracted to yellow. “People used to believe that bright yellow westuits were called ‘yum yum yellow’ so avoid ‘yum yum yellow’ wetsuits,” says Andrew Christie, Kelly Tarlton’s curator. Looks like blue or green is your best bet.
The Shark Shocker shark deterrent band uses magnets that produce a magnetic field causing discomfort and disorientation in sharks as they approach you.
Here’s a video of the device being tested with stingrays which apparently have the same sensors as sharks. They say there’s an actual shark testing video coming soon but hey, for $30 it can’t hurt.
Australian lifeguards will soon get text messages when Great White sharks swim near the beaches they are patrolling.
Researchers are electronically tagging the man-eating predators with GPS units which will constantly monitor their movements.
If the sharks then get too near to a beach a satellite receiver will automatically send out emails and text messages to wildlife officials and lifeguards.
Currently 74 white sharks have been tagged and there are 20 communications-equipped monitoring stations have been installed off the Perth coast.
A marine expert is calling for the removal of shark nets during whale migrations after a baby humpback had to be freed from nets in Gold Coast waters.
The calf, which was migrating to southern waters with two other adult whales, is the fourth humpback to be caught in the controversial shark nets in just weeks.
Although it took rescuers just under an hour to free the little whale, Sea World’s director of marine sciences Trevor Long says it’s time for the nets to go.
The shark nets offer little protection to swimmers and kill other marine life, Mr Long told AAP.
“They (the community) don’t understand the amount of animals that are taken – turtles, dugongs, dolphins, turtles, rays – every year,” he said.
“There’s an enormous loss of wildlife for this perception of protection.
“I’ve been trying to get the nets removed for ages.”
Sharks could easily swim around the nets that are 600 metres long and five metres deep and only protect 11 out of 27 Gold Coast beaches, he said.
In his research to develop effective shark repellent, Eric Stroud has found that what works best are the rotten carcasses of other sharks, which had long been part of fishermen’s folklore.
“It’s the most godawful thing you ever smelled,” said Stroud, 35, a Ph.D. student in chemistry at Seton Hall who started his company, SharkDefense, to develop repellent technologies in 2004. SharkDefense has a $20-$25 can of shark-repelling aerosol spray available, but it also has repellents in the forms of magnets and metals. Go get some.
Following the recent fatal shark attack on a surfer at Port St. Johns, a mystery man decided to donate some cash so the local surfing community so they can get their hands on a few Shark Shields.
The mystery donor pledged about $12,000 to the Iliza Surfing Academy to cover contest costs, equipment and daily running expenses.
Volusia County, shark bite capital of the world, will host a surfing competition next month.
The Volusia County Council approved the event last week. Organizers say the Land Shark Spring Surfari Pro could attrack 2,000 visitors to the Ponce de Leon Inlet.
There were 22 shark attacks last year in Volusia County – its highest yearly total since 2001.
A shark net off St. Kilda beach in Australia was recently found with three gaping holes in it. Not good, considering it’s summer over there. Free divers Nick Holmes and Chris Garden discovered the nets while diving in the area.
Holmes told the Otago Daily Times the net with the holes had been there for at least a month, as he’d made repeat visits to study the net’s condition.
Apparently, commercial fishermen are paid to check and maintain the nets regularly.
Until now the Australian Government has refused to let the public know where the shark nets are placed. But that may be changing.
According to The Daily Telegraph, a major review of the “shark meshing program” will be revealed by Department of Primary Industries Minister next month. The main focus of the review will be how to keep other marine life, such as sea turtles, dolphins, harmless sharks and rays, from being caught in the nets.
The nets are moved between 51 beaches stretching from Newcastle to Wollongong but not every beach is protected every day.
The Government’s main concern with spilling the beans was that if the locations were revealed, the beaches where the nets are placed would be swamped by swimmers… along with the fact that most people think the nets are a total barrier preventing any sharks from getting to the beach, when the reality is it’s really just a series of unconnected nets which do not reach top to bottom.
The city of Sanibel, FL has been informed by Lee County Division of Natural Resources that the Blind Pass dredging project is attracting sharks. Uh-oh.
Project Manager Robert Neal told Sanibel officials that this is common for beach projects around dawn and dusk of each day and this project is more likely to attract sharks since it’s close to shore.
Neal is attempting to have appropriate warning signage in place in early January 2009.
