Great White Shark Culling?
Read all about this story by going to the following link (a similar article appeared in the South China Morning Post):
Five-fold rise in shark attacks sparks calls for cull of protected great whites
This was my response, in letter to the SCMP (published on Sunday 8 October 2005):
The article in the SCMP (October 2) has certainly sparked debate and yet has not given the shark a chance to defend itself. Again we witness a trophy photo of a surfer holding up his damaged surfboard and the words terror as he probably fought for his life (indeed)...gripping stuff we have all heard and seen before.
Perhaps one other alternative we haven't considered is actually banning marine users from the favoured feeding areas of Great White Sharks.
Can we not issue 'an offence against nature' to those that take the (sometimes deliberate) risk when sharing the same water with the ocean's apex predator? Enough of grabbing front page headlines with near miss shark attacks, and instead fine those that dress up in neoprene and surf in seal rookeries or spearfish in other favoured feeding habitat areas. It's not as though we do not know where the sharks are.
As for putting money on another shark attack this summer (an 18 year old waitress's prediction), this does not sound particularly scientific nor help the sharks fight for survival. I can also guarantee that if I dressed the waitress in a wilder beast costume and asked her to run around the Serengeti National Park then I'd put my money on her being eaten by a lion or attacked by a pack of hyenas.
I suggest we
leave the scientific assessment of culling to scientists and marine
specialists and not surfers or land based residents; and for once leave
the shark an area of ocean where it can swim around and cull those
deemed to be over exploiting an area of habitat....if that mistakenly
includes humans so be it.
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Comments
bastards!
if humans are stupid enough to empty the seas of their food and then flounder around looking like seals they should expect to be bitten.
the poor sharks are just trying to get by. their natural way of getting food is getting destroyed by idiots so what the hell else are they going to do?!!?!?
.
NO WAY should we cull sharks,
NO WAY should we cull sharks, even if they do kill some people they dont intend to like us. We kill them for Sharkfin soup and other stuff. If we kill them that could unbalence the whole ecosystem.
CULL THEM!!
Take them out, if their numbers are dwindling then what affect if any are they having as an apex predator?? An odd seal here and there! So they won't be missed one bit and the oceans will be a safer place for humans to play in! At the end of the day we are the apex living beings on this planet! All this conservation malarky goes against natural selection and evolution, its time for humans to DOMINATE as a species! Aren't you glad that big old nasty meteor took out the dinosaurs making way for the mammals to evolve? Lets just cull them and ride waves!!
yes on cull
I agree,they are a prehistoric creature (as such we needn't be overtly sensitive to its well-being as it has survived this long) that although amazing to see in the wild must be culled to ensure the safety of people who use the inshore ocean for recreation and work.These sharks are moving ever closer to shore these days and even a relatively minor encounter with one could prove fatal for a human.
That is the wrong in take
Yes the sharks have attacked Australian oceans and yes they have bitten a small amount of humans, but look at it we are much worse than them. they feed when they are hungry, now i consider myself a carnivore, i love meet but think about the animals that have to die for us to eat, they kill to live. Sharks should not be culled, the ocean was their domain well before it was a humans. we should respect that and if a surfer is gonna dress up and look like a seal, then he should be expecting to be attacked.
TOTALLY RIGHT !!!!!!!!!
I definitely agree with the person that wrote above me. You have a very good argument and your statements are completely correct. I hope that the government will agree also, that sharks should not be culled. You see, i'm doing a persuasive argument in my class about shark culling and I immediately chose to be against shark culling. You've given me great modality words and have given me a good argument to write. Thanks dude. Love your writing techniques. :D