Australian state declares war on sharks

[OMB]

It's the shark swimming in our water - he's taking the risk

they've been around a lot longer than we have

 

[OrbitalDawn]

It's the shark swimming in our water - he's taking the risk

Our water? Really?

 

[The_Assimilator]

I wonder if this is yet another genius policy from the brilliant Tony Abbott.

 

[Rocket-Boy]

What's the difference if they're killed? Shark lives aren't worth more than human lives.

Either you are trolling or incredibly ignorant about the world around you and how its systems work.
If you remove sharks from the sea's ecosystem or even thin their numbers sufficiently then the whole thing starts to fail.
Easter Island is a prime example of this, it went from a rich sealife with plenty of birds and fish to a desolate swimming pool with fish too small to eat when the sharks were overfished.

If they start hunting sharks in Aus then they are going to seriously mess with their natural attractions like the great barrier reef etc.

 

[Creag]

It's the shark swimming in their water - it's the human unnecessarily taking the risk

FTFY.

 

[Solarion]

Sharks that come within sight of popular beaches on Australia's west coast will be hunted and killed, officials said Tuesday. Baited hooks fixed to the ocean floor will also be used to catch the big fish in a response to 11 fatalities in the last 10 years. "The safety of human life and beachgoers must come first," Western Australia state Premier Colin Barnett told parliament when announcing an end to protection for great white sharks. "These new initiatives come on top of a raft of measures the state government already has in place to protect beachgoers, like increased aerial surveillance, beach patrols, shark tagging and a trial of a shark enclosure in the south-west," he said. The shift to what was called a "proactive" and "aggressive" risk-reduction strategy follows the death last month of 35-year-old surfer Chris Boyd at Gracetown, near his home of Margaret River.

The previous shark encounter was in October when professional abalone diver Greg Pickering was attacked and needed 10 hours of surgery to bites on his head and neck.

Australia averages one shark death a year. There are an average of five fatalities a year worldwide.


Source : Sapa-dpa /sdv
Date : 10 Dec 2013 08:46

Yeah that's right, plug the predators out of the food chain, it's a stupid evolutionary system that clearly hasn't worked for millions of years anyway so best get rid of it.

\nuclear facepalm

 

[hellfire]

Either you are trolling or incredibly ignorant about the world around you and how its systems work.
If you remove sharks from the sea's ecosystem or even thin their numbers sufficiently then the whole thing starts to fail.
Easter Island is a prime example of this, it went from a rich sealife with plenty of birds and fish to a desolate swimming pool with fish too small to eat when the sharks were overfished.

If they start hunting sharks in Aus then they are going to seriously mess with their natural attractions like the great barrier reef etc.

Trolling

 

[Maverick Jester]

Sigh... Australians...

 

[w1z4rd]

10 attacks in 11 years? What the heck? More people are killed by cows every year. Are they going to declare a war on cows as well?

 

[AfricanTech]

You read this stuff and can't believe it's true

Then you realise it's being said by a politician

and you realise that it is true

JFC politicians are dumb the world over.

 

[w1z4rd]

Either you are trolling or incredibly ignorant about the world around you and how its systems work.
If you remove sharks from the sea's ecosystem or even thin their numbers sufficiently then the whole thing starts to fail.
Easter Island is a prime example of this, it went from a rich sealife with plenty of birds and fish to a desolate swimming pool with fish too small to eat when the sharks were overfished.

If they start hunting sharks in Aus then they are going to seriously mess with their natural attractions like the great barrier reef etc.

They got to be a keystone species for the system to fail. Apex predators are very seldom keystone species.

How does a lack of sharks lead to smaller fish? You would think without their apex predator there they would breed more abundantly.

 

[nightjar]

10 attacks in 11 years? What the heck? More people are killed by cows every year. Are they going to declare a war on cows as well?

In 2006-07, there were 260 homicide instances, involving 266 victims and 296 offenders.
http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide.html

A good argument for bringing back the death penalty.

 

[thestaggy]

They got to be a keystone species for the system to fail. Apex predators are very seldom keystone species.

How does a lack of sharks lead to smaller fish? You would think without their apex predator there they would breed more abundantly.

I agree with your second statement, but apex predators are indeed keystone species.

Loss of large predators disrupting multiple plant, animal and human ecosystems

The enormous decline of large, apex predators and "consumers" ranging from wolves to lions, sharks and sea otters may represent the most powerful impacts humans have ever had on Earth's ecosystems, a group of 24 researchers concluded today in a new report in the journal Science.

The decline of such species around the world is much greater than previously understood and now affects many other ecological processes through what scientists call "trophic cascades," in which the loss of "top down" predation severely disrupts many other plant and animal species.

Such disruption is sufficiently severe that it now affects everything from habitat loss to pollution, carbon sequestration, wildfire, climate, invasive species and spread of disease, the scientists said. It is also a driving force in the sixth mass extinction in Earth history, which the researchers said is now under way.

"We now have overwhelming evidence that large predators are hugely important in the function of nature, from the deepest oceans to the highest mountains, the tropics to the Arctic," said William Ripple, a professor of forestry at Oregon State University, co-author of the report and an international leader in this field of study as director of OSU's Trophic Cascades Program.

http://phys.org/news/2011-07-loss-large-predators-disrupting-multiple.html

Also, look into the damage done to Yellowstone by the removal of the Gray Wolves. Herbivore populations exploded and damaged the vegation to the point that the changes were visible to the eye. Coyotes effectively filled the void but they could not control the populations of the larger herbivores.

Wolves Are Rebalancing Yellowstone Ecosystem

The data show a clear and remarkable linkage between the presence of wolves and the health of an entire streamside ecosystem, including two species of cottonwoods and the myriad of roles they play in erosion control, stream health, and nurturing diverse plant and animal life.

The findings of these studies were recently published in Ecological Applications, a journal of the Ecological Society of America, and the journal Forest Ecology and Management.

"In one portion of the elk's winter range along the Lamar River of Yellowstone National Park, we found that there were thousands of small cottonwood seedlings," said Robert Beschta, professor emeritus in the College of Forestry at OSU and an expert on streams and riparian systems. "There should also have been hundreds of young trees, but there were none. Long-term elk browsing had been preventing any seedlings from getting taller."

"Before the wolves came back, it was pretty clear that in some areas we were heading towards an outright extinction of cottonwoods," Beschta said.

Now, with the recent reintroduction of wolves back into Yellowstone in 1995, streamside shrubs and cottonwoods within the Lamar Valley are beginning to become more prevalent and taller, and were the focus of a second study in the same area. That study outlines how the fear of attack by wolves apparently prevents browsing elk from eating young cottonwood and willows in some streamside zones.

With the renewed presence of wolves, young cottonwoods and willows have been growing taller each year over the last four years on "high-risk" sites, where elk apparently feel vulnerable due to terrain or other conditions that might prevent escape. In contrast, on "low-risk" sites, they are still being browsed by elk and show little increase in height.

 

[w1z4rd]

I agree with your second statement, but apex predators are indeed keystone species.



Also, look into the damage done to Yellowstone by the removal of the Gray Wolves. Herbivore populations exploded and damaged the vegation to the point that the changes were visible to the eye. Coyotes effectively filled the void but they could not control the populations of the larger herbivores.

I understand you can get population explosions (if there is no other predator to replace the apex predator... and in the ocean, there are many), but... with humans pwning the oceans I dont think this is a bad thing. This is not some low biodiversity area like Yellowstone National Park. This is the ocean.

 

[battletoad]

Ah well, not too bothered. They couldn't even win the Great Emu War.

snippet from that page

The machine-gunners' dreams of point blank fire into serried masses of Emus were soon dissipated. The Emu command had evidently ordered guerrilla tactics, and its unwieldy army soon split up into innumerable small units that made use of the military equipment uneconomic. A crestfallen field force therefore withdrew from the combat area after about a month.

Oh, and its an entry in a cracked article.

 

[Nick333]

What absolute retardation. At 11 fatalities in a decade I think it's safe to say most animals are more dangerous to humans including horses and dogs. Hunt and kill all the animals.

 

[Rocket-Boy]

Trolling

Lol fair enough then.

 

[Rocket-Boy]

They got to be a keystone species for the system to fail. Apex predators are very seldom keystone species.

How does a lack of sharks lead to smaller fish? You would think without their apex predator there they would breed more abundantly.

Its a complex ecosystem. I will try find the documentary online and post a link.
The sharks remove the weaker fish resulting in stronger breed strains, survival of the fittest etc.
They always say the most notable indicator of the marine health is the shark population.

I have a problem with them killing the sharks because its a really stupid short sighted thing to do.
It was always a mixed emotions thing for me in the past because I lost a friend to a shark attack.

 

[thestaggy]

I understand you can get population explosions (if there is no other predator to replace the apex predator... and in the ocean, there are many), but... with humans pwning the oceans I dont think this is a bad thing. This is not some low biodiversity area like Yellowstone National Park. This is the ocean.

US shellfish industry destroyed by shark fishing

The demise of the shellfish industry in the US can be directly traced to the way humans have devastated ocean shark populations, a new study suggests.

Humans eat big sharks, sharks eat rays, rays eat molluscs. And so it is that by drastically reducing populations of large sharks, humans have indirectly wiped out their own scallop-fishing industry.

The middle player in this ecological cascade, according to the new study, is the cownose ray - the only species whose population has benefited, growing tenfold in 30 years.

The study demonstrates how the ocean's very large and very small animals are linked and underlines the importance of preserving the ocean's biggest and most powerful predator.

http://www.newscientist.com/article...-destroyed-by-shark-fishing.html#.UqgkcNKVNJI

Old article, but still a viable source due to the research that was conducted.

 

[LazyLion]

Australia to go ahead with Shark 'kill' zones

A controversial policy to catch and kill sharks off popular west coast beaches got the green light in Australia, in a move the Humane Society Tuesday termed a "complete disgrace".

The federal government granted an exemption from environmental laws to approve Western Australia's shark mitigation plan, which is aimed at reducing the risks to water users after six fatal attacks in the past two years.

It means baited drum lines with hooks designed to capture large sharks can be set one kilometre (0.62 miles) offshore at busy Western Australian beaches from now until April 30.

The state government has said that any shark longer than three metres (10 feet) snagged by the lines and deemed to be a threat -- including great white, bull and tiger sharks -- will be humanely destroyed.

In granting the exemption, Environment Minister Greg Hunt said individuals must be responsible for their own safety while swimming, surfing and boating in the open sea.

"In this particular case, however, there has been a series of tragedies due to shark attack," he said, adding that there was evidence of a significant increase in incidents off the west coast in recent years.

Hunt said the proposal was for a brief trial period and confined to a few high-use, high-risk beaches.

"One does not have to agree with a policy to accept that a national interest exemption is warranted to protect against imminent threat to life, economic damage and public safety more generally," he said.

The Humane Society said the decision flew in the face of international obligations to protect the great white shark, Australian federal law and loud public opposition to the policy.

"The exemption of the WA shark policy is a complete disgrace," said Humane Society International's Alexia Wellbelove, adding it lacked a scientific approach.

"This exemption demonstrates the complete failure of the federal government to protect our most precious species and fulfil our international environmental obligations, for the price of a policy which we do not believe will have the desired impact of reducing risk for people, which is its stated purpose."

Local marine scientists have described Australia's west coast as the world's deadliest shark attack zone, and a tagging and tracking programme is already underway in a bid to limit fatalities.

The new crackdown was triggered by the fatal mauling of a surfer at Lefthanders Beach, in the popular Margaret River tourist region, in late November -- the sixth shark killing in Western Australia in two years.

While sharks are common in Australian waters, deadly attacks are rare, with only one of the average 15 incidents a year typically proving fatal.

Experts say attacks are increasing in line with population growth and the popularity of water sports.


Source : Sapa-AFP /avb
Date : 21 Jan 2014 08:34