Topic: Sydney UK expat shark attack victim

[livo]

As you may or may not know, an expat Brit was killed by a shark here in Australia last Wednesday.  It is very sad and hard to comprehend although people die from shark injuries quite frequently.  Even harder to understand if you haven't seen what actually happened.  Unfortunately, I have.  He wasn't just mauled and suffered injury. The Scientists / Marine biologists / shark lovers need to adjust their considerations of Great White Sharks appropriately.  They are now in abundance along our coastline and people, including kids swim and surf along the same coast everywhere daily.  Within kilometres of this event.

The news about this attack is full of lies and coverup.  The media / conservationists / greenies are trying to attribute the blame on him for doing repetitive swims in the same area.  They are trying to say he was attacked because he was wearing a wetsuit and he resembled a seal.  The shark was confused.  Sharks won't eat humans because we are unnatural prey.  Utter rubbish.  They are trying to say that sharks don't deliberately target humans, and that part at least is correct.  But these animals are pre-historic predatory eating machines.  They are close to shore and people swimming in the ocean are food.  5 metres long and with a mouth the size of a 4 seater dining table.  Yep. Imagine that.

This poor chap was swimming along in a dangerous area, with full knowledge, and he was eaten alive.  Or at least, nearly half of him was eaten while he was alive.  He probably died pretty quick and more the mercy of the size of the animal. The 5 metre long animal came back to take the rest of him.  It is the ocean.  The event occurred at 4.30 pm in the afternoon only 10 metres away from the nearest person, a poor unfortunate fisherman who witnessed this up close right in his face.  Other people were there on the spot and a few recorded the event as it unfolded, on there mobile devices.  Initially there were the unedited videos.  Quickly replaced by media friendly pixelated versions.  These are now gone.  Then there was the second video that clearly showed what happened after the initial attack.  This video was not released or shown on the media and is now not able to be seen, and for good reason.  It is / was truly gruesome, but nothing new to anybody who has spent time on the ocean.

The authorities knew what they were dealing with.  Today they have called off the search for human remains after 5 days.

This is not a post to incite hostility towards Great White Sharks.  It is not a post to express outrage at media and social media censorship.  There is no reason to show or post a video of this poor individual soul being eaten alive.  This is just to say that if you, for any reason, anywhere on the planet, choose to enter the ocean, you are not above or beyond the evolutionary food chain.  I'm glad that after 30 years out of the ocean, I no longer bob about on the surface on a surfboard.  The shark "encounters" appear to be occurring much more frequently.

There has not been a fatal shark attack in Sydney for 60 years.  There have been many that resulted in serious injury.  Very serious injury.
There have been multiple fatalities here in different parts of the country, over the last few years and these "encounters" continue to occur and are becoming more frequent.  Most of the time it involves people who love the ocean and would hate to see retribution against the creatures that, let's face it, ate them.

I express my deepest sympathy to the family of this young man. He did nothing wrong and died doing what he loved.  I express my sympathy to the UK nation in having lost a patriotic and heroic young man.

[Peripatetic Phil]

Let me start by saying that I initially misunderstood the tenor of your post.  Fortunately you made your perspective adequately clear in the closing three paras.  My only reason for commenting (other than a barely-contained desire to re-express "expat Brit" as "expatriate Briton") is to mention the analogy with Grizzly Man, where the original video evidence was deliberately destroyed so that it could never, ever, be made public.   A part of me would be interested in seeing a video recording of someone being eaten by a Great White; the other part of me recognises that this "someone" was not just a "someone" at all — he was "a gentle, kind and wonderful human being; he was a cherished fiancée, son, brother, uncle and friend"; and he was a Cornishman who loved cats and whose cat clearly loved him, and someone whose family have the right to mourn in peace without wondering how many people have ghoulishly watched a video recording of their loved one being eaten alive.

But I don't agree with your "The news about this attack is full of lies and coverup.  The media / conservationists / greenies are trying to attribute the blame on him for doing repetitive swims in the same area".  I don't believe there are any lies or any cover-up — the media / conservationists / greenies are only saying what you did — that by swimming in an area known to be frequented by Great Whites he was exposing himself to danger, and sadly he died as a result.  It may well have been that by wearing a wetsuit the shark may have confused him with a seal — it is a by-no-means impossible explanation.

** Phil.

[Secret Santa]

People don't go aimlessly wandering around Africa expecting not to be eaten by lions and hyenas or trampled by elephants. I don't aimlessly wander into a road expecting not to be run over. Why do people assume they can swim with sharks and not get eaten?

Daft bugger. Zero sympathy here.

[livo]

You are correct Phil. Lies and cover up are over-stating. Perhaps sanitation is a better description of the news coverage.

[Ghoulie]

I used to be a subaqua diver - 20 years - from age 25 to 45 - mainly UK diving.  When I lived in the Middle East, I had a few dives there. On one dive, I got the dive boat to drop me off in the entrance to Fujairah harbour - UAE, Indian Ocean - so I could swim back on the surface looking for crayfish. 50 yards in I encountered 4x white tip sharks @ 7 ft long. There was a muffled ‘f**k me’ in my mouthpiece as I spotted the 4 inverted grins in front of me. Luckily they didn’t fancy me & split 2 each side of me and swam past me. I immediately spun onto my back to see where they were going. They carried on. I headed for the rocky breakwater and walked the rest of the 150 yards back to the beach bit where the families were. The sharks had come right past where our wives and kids were playing in the water - nobody spotted them. Puts you in your place when you meet something big enough to eat you in its own environment

[Bob-A-Job]

My prayers and condolences for the family and friends of Simon.

I wasn't going to contribute until I read Ghoulie's post and it reminded me that on the Pyramid of Predators, we are only ranked 5 (top) because of our ability to use tools, other than that, in the natural environment of other predators, we are barely a 2.

Sobering thought.

[Garp]

People don't go aimlessly wandering around Africa expecting not to be eaten by lions and hyenas or trampled by elephants. I don't aimlessly wander into a road expecting not to be run over. Why do people assume they can swim with sharks and not get eaten?

Daft bugger. Zero sympathy here.

 

[George]

People don't go aimlessly wandering around Africa expecting not to be eaten by lions and hyenas or trampled by elephants. I don't aimlessly wander into a road expecting not to be run over. Why do people assume they can swim with sharks and not get eaten?

Daft bugger. Zero sympathy here.

I agree with Secret Santa. He presumably lacked any common sense and paid a high price for his reckless stupidity.

The alignment of the quote marks on this forum is poor, so my previous quote was completely wrong. I know I should have previewed the post but I have better things to do with my time.