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 some interpretations (long) New
- Forum: SurfZone
Re:  recent GW attack, first hand account.Scary stuff.. Also, safer paddling? asspaddler New
Re: it would be good to have some better stats data about this Kayak_kate New
Date: Aug 31 2007, 21:57 GMT
From: 8
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We are in the peak 3 months right now with sept being worst. Have read lately that this is the season when sharks are in shallow water for some reason (why is that? feeding? mating? Temperature effect?).
the vast majority of attacks were in 1-6 ft deep water, & nearly none in 11+ feet of water. There are many more people in 1-6 ft water, but can you also say that big wave surfers are attacked almost never?
they report:
"The total number (108) of authenticated cases of shark attack reported from the Pacific Coast of North America during the Twentieth Century. The distribution of the 108 authenticated unprovoked shark attacks from the Pacific Coast among these victim groups is: divers, 50 (46%); surfers, 41 (38%); swimmers, 12 (11%); and kayakers, 5 (5%)."
To normalize compare the results with your experience:
there are 10X more divers than kayakers (sea and surf and fish..)
there are 7-8X more surfers than kayakers
There are twice as many swimmers as kayakers
Surprising to me it doesn't bode well for the kayakers. Still there were only 5 attacks in the 20th century. That's about 1 per year, although our populating is higher now. Still, its on the order of 1 in a million. One of the recent attacks on a kayaker involved many kayak fishermen in one spot for two hours. This was competition for food in a risky time of year. The fact that divers get hit the most while harvesting abalone then fish backs up this "provocation" angle, as would a higher prevalence of river mouth attacks.
An austalian firm builts a thing that emits EM waves that abolutely repells sharks. they have awesome video to prove it on their web site. I asked a monterey bay aquarium scientist if a blinking bicycle light would have any effect? He said that they have noticed the great white stays away when people are taking flash photos.
This is getting to be an annual post = )
Jason |
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 Statistically speaking, you don't want to dive for Abalone VSG New - Re shark Protector Yak-Chat New
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