Shark patrollers in Australia have swapped out last year’s light aircraft with a shiny new helicopter. The chopper will be used to conduct aerial shark patrols along Perth beaches this summer (yep, it’s summer there). The State Government has provided an additional $110,000 for the new service.
Helicopter service begins today!
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According to the LA Times, chumming will no longer be permitted around the Farallon Islands off San Francisco.
Under the new rules, it’s also now illegal to attract seabirds by tossing food in the water, and tour boats will have to remain 55 yards away while white sharks are feeding on seas.
And no more seal-shaped decoys either. Once the new regulations go into effect in mid-March, decoys will require a special permit.
Hopefully, this will help keep the sharks from munching on the surfers.
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A 28-month-old rescue dog had little run-in with shark on Friday.
Jake was on his daily swim in Islamorada, Florida when a shark tried to gobble him up. Jake’s owner, Greg LeNoir, watched in horror as the 5 ft shark wrapped it’s jaws around the 14 lb pooch. LeNoir dove in after jake, punching the shark. The shark let go of Jake, and the dog resurfaced and hightailed it back to shore.
The shark’s teeth had punctured Jake’s skin (in a pattern that looked like an upside down smile) and also left some lacerations on his right side and front left leg. According to LeNoir, the shark put almost all of Jake in its mouth, except for his head and three of his legs. Dang!
Luckily, it looks like Jake’s gonna make it.
A plan is in the works to increase the shark population off of Central Florida’s coast. A new regulation being rolled out by the federal government this June is supposed to improve the ocean environment.
But it could also lead to more shark encounters on the beach and it’s forcing fishermen out of business.
Look out, Floridians!
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If you’re planning your summer beach vacation, you might want to cross a few destinations off your wish list. Here’s a list of North America’s sharkiest beaches (according to Forbes Traveler).
1. New Smyrna Beach, Fla.
Thanks to thousands of annual beachgoers and untold toothy predators hunting offshore, New Smyrna is the shark attack capital of the world. That’s according to the International Shark Attack File, which cites 210 attacks in the beach’s home county of Volusia, Fla. But miles of white sand and consistent surf breaks continue to draw vacationers and locals alike into New Smyrna’s waters.
2. North Shore, Oahu, Hawaii
Number two on the International Shark Attack File for unprovoked attacks is Oahu, where tiger sharks, Galapagos sharks and sandbar sharks congregate in high numbers, especially near beaches on the island’s north shore. This doesn’t stop surfers, who flock to Velzyland Beach, the Leftovers Break and dozens of additional wave-beaten beaches where sharks search and swim.
3. Bolinas Beach, Calif.
Thanks in large part to Jaws, great white sharks inspire unparalleled fear when it comes to swimming in the ocean. At Bolinas Beach, a secluded town with a namesake beach that’s just north of San Francisco, 15-foot-long beasts and known to dwell under the waves where surfers play.
4. Beaches of Brevard County, Fla.
In the past 100 years, there have been 90 reported shark confrontations on beaches in this county on Florida’s east coast. Visitors head east from Orlando to the ocean to dip toes in the tepid waters at Cocoa Beach, Jetty Park and Klondike Beach, a 24-mile-long wilderness beach accessible only by foot in Canaveral National Seashore preserve.
5. Kahana, Maui
The deep blue water of Kahana Beach, near its namesake town on the west cost of Maui, is home to sea turtles, humpback whales and… tiger sharks. Laleh Mohajerani, executive director of the shark conservation organization Iemanya Oceanica, says the massive predators swim near the protective offshore reef that makes the beach a popular swimming spot.
6. West End, Grand Bahamas Island
Though it didn’t happen at a beach, the death of an Austrian lawyer who was diving with sharks in February off the Bahamas has focused attention on these tropical waters. Patric Douglas, owner of Shark Diver, an ocean guiding outfit in San Francisco, says they’re “among the shark-iest places on the planet.” He’s personally seen 14-foot-long tiger sharks off the beaches where millions of tourists swim and sunbathe each year.
7. Stinson Beach, Calif.
In the shadow of Marin County’s Mt. Tamalpais, great white sharks come to swim in the shallows of Stinson Beach. Patric Douglas has sighted them at this beach—which is a neighboring stretch of sand eastward of Bolinas Beach (also on this list, in the number three spot)—in less than 20 feet of water. “They’re coming to feed on seals, though it’s not uncommon for surfers to see them,” he says.
8. La Paz, Mexico
The International Shark Attack File reports three unprovoked attacks in the waters off Baja California Sur over the past decades. But the beaches of La Paz—a harbor city of 190,000 people—are relatively safe, despite the hammerheads and giant whale sharks that swim nearby. The latter is a filter feeder that’s the largest fish species on Earth, and a resident of these waters.
9. Long Beach Island, New Jersey
Peter Benchley’s original 1974 novel, “Jaws,” was inspired by incidents at this New Jersey beach in 1916. In an unprecedented 11 days, five major shark attacks took place along the Jersey Shore, four of which were fatal. Reports cited blood turning the water red and sharks following victims toward the beach. Today, shark sightings are rare, but the legend lives on in the surf and swells of these tepid Atlantic waters.
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A recent study by NOAA scientists and colleagues on captive juvenile sandbar sharks showed the presence of an electropositive alloy, in this case palladium neodymium, clearly altered the swimming patterns of individual animals and temporarily deterred feeding in groups of sharks.
Electric fields generated by electropositive alloys are believed to deter or repel sharks by overloading their sensory systems.
These pics show the swimming pattern (red lines) of a sandbar shark with and without the lead fishing weights suspended in the tank at the 5 o’clock position.
Can I please get some board shorts made out of this stuff?
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During the testing phase for the Shark Shield, an electronic device that is designed to go on the back of surfboards to keep sharks away, one of the devices was actually eaten by a shark.
Not only did the thing not keep sharks away, but it actually attracted the attention of a 12-foot great white that mistook it for lunch. Luckily, it was on a buoy and not a surfboard at the time.
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Now that you’re done buying gifts for everyone else, it’s time to get a little something for yourself. For $23,000 you can get yourself a Neptunic Sharksuit.
Neptunic’s founder says during testing he’s been subjected to thousands of shark bites while sustaining no significant injuries. But a legal disclaimer warns that a shark bite could still cause broken bones and tissue damage, and goes on to say: “We offer no guarantee whatsoever about the usefulness of this product to protect a wearer from injury of any kind under any circumstances.”
Didn’t Cher have one of these in the 80′s?
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The folks at Teeka Tan who brought us Safe Sea, a sunblock that inhibits jellyfish stings, say they’ve developed the world’s first shark-repelling sunblock. The sunblock/repellent operates on pheromones that will supposedly send sharks packing. One small catch… it only works for 30 minutes before it needs to be reapplied.
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Planning a vacation? You might wanna cross these places off your list.
-Kosi Bay, South Africa: Zambezi sharks
-“Shark Alley,†Gansbaai, South Africa: Great white sharks
-Brisbane, Australia: Great whites, bulls, et al
-Bolinas Beach, Northern California: Great whites
-New Smyrna Beach, Florida: Blacktip and spinner sharks
-Umhlanga Rocks, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa: Great white and bull sharks
-North Shore, Oahu, Hawaii: Galapagos sharks, sandbar sharks, tigers
-Recife, Brazil
-Kahana, West Maui, Hawaii
-West End, Grand Bahama Island, Bahamas: Tiger Sharks
Continue reading ‘The World’s Most Shark-Infested Beaches’
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