Comment
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
I've often sat on a surfboard - legs dangling in the deep - and war-gamed what I'd do if I ever saw a shark. My conclusion is always the same: pull legs up, lie flat and hope for a wave to whisk me ashore. What else could you do?
Then one day I actually saw a shark. Firstly my carefully plotted emergency drill went out the window. Secondly I realised it hadn't been needed.
I was out with three mates on the mid-North Coast five years ago, waiting for a wave. A green wall of liquid rose up, beautifully backlit by the morning sun. And smack in the middle, a good deal longer than our boards, was the unmistakable silhouette of the man in the grey suit. Except this one's get-up was brownish grey; two of us saw it and we guessed it was a bronze whaler.
The reality is if you’re in their habitat, you take a risk – just as you do when you get in a car.
Dun-dun, dun-dun, dun-dun ...
Cue our disbelieving gasps of: "Was that ...?" "Was it ...?" "Did you see ...?" "What do we ...?" Some expletives. Then the wave passed and so, we supposed, did the shark. Disbelief gave way to awe. "Wow maaaan!" More expletives. "That was insane!"
The fact is ol' Bronzey's nonchalant body language put us at ease. We got a good look; three, four, maybe five seconds as the "monster" gently cruised north. It was completely non-threatening, showing zero interest in us. So we stayed out for another 40-odd minutes - slightly jumpy but still unexpectedly reassured.
Even now I look back on that encounter with a sense of wonder and gratitude. I got to see a shark in the wild - truly in the wild - and there was something deeply serene about it.
Perhaps that's why I can't share Australia's vapours on the infinitesimally rare occasions sharks do attack humans. You could be in Alice Springs and it is still huge news, recounted in minute and gory detail. It's enough to terrorise people who haven't even been in the ocean for 40 years. Every time there's a shark attack, I'm guaranteed to get a phone call from my mum: "You just be very careful out there!"
And when the standard pre-summer warnings start being trotted out - like this week's alert from the Bendigo Bank Aerial Patrol - I feel my hackles rising.
The shark-spotters haven't even got their planes in the air but already they're cranking up the fear. "There is always [shark] activity there, especially as the whale migration south is still on and larger predators are out waiting for a big catch," aerial patrol general manager Harry Mitchell told the Mercury on Wednesday. "We have seen a few in recent weeks. There were a few large ones around fishing boats last week."
Mitchell went on to say that as the warmer months approach, swimmers should remember what lurks off Illawarra beaches. "We get seals in Lake Illawarra, which are food sources for larger predators," he warned.
To my mind, that's completely useless information. It'd be like the Bureau of Meteorology saying, "Tomorrow the sun will come up and in the summer months it will get hotter." I reckon most people already know there are sharks in the sea. As for being "careful" about them, like I always say to my mum, "How do you do that exactly?"
You either go in the ocean where sharks live, or you don't. Okay, there might be some general rules of thumb - like avoid swimming/surfing at dusk/dawn when a shark's vision is likely to be less effective and don't hang out in a wetsuit in a seal colony - but these creatures have sophisticated ways of sensing prey at any time of the day and eyesight ain't high on the list.
The reality is if you're in their habitat, you take a risk - just as you do when you get in a car (1193 deaths in Australia last year) or sit on the couch hardening your arteries (one death every 12 minutes from cardiovascular disease).
Sure, I'm a fan of the aerial shark patrols; if they spot a shark near swimmers, they can contact lifeguards. Calling people out of the water could certainly minimise risk.
I'm just not big on talking up the shock and awe of "shark season". It helps no-one and reinforces a dread (particularly among mums like mine) that just isn't justified. On average nearly 300 people drown in our waters every year. Over the past 50 years, just 45 people have been killed by sharks in Australia - statistically less than one person a year; a drop in the figurative ocean.