Should Cage Diving be Banned ? Poll

uncle_leroy started the topic in Saturday, 11 Oct 2014 at 12:08 pm

A cage diving poll.

Do you give the thumbs up or thumbs down to cage diving in Australian waters.....??

Points of interest
- Cage diving possibly conditioning sharks to associate boats with a free feed
- Scientists claiming cage diving as research yet constantly dangle tuna heads in front of the wild animals for hours on end
- GWS migration patterns, sharks exposed to cage diving activities in South Oz, travelling through Vicco, Nsw and into Qld, other west into WA and across to South Africa. South African sharks exposed to cage diving migrating to Australia.
- Tourist benefit
- Business income to the operator, employee's and the boats home Port
- Animals best interest

Yes - ban the cage diving in all Australian waters

No - allow cage diving practices to continue in South Australia

Hell No - allow cage diving to continue and introduce it to Vicco and WA

uncle_leroy Saturday, 11 Oct 2014 at 12:11 pm new

Yes, No or Hell No only please

blanche Saturday, 11 Oct 2014 at 01:43 pm new

Yes.

simba Saturday, 11 Oct 2014 at 02:09 pm new

Ban it ,its a no brainer,similar to training a lion to jump thru hoops except whites are being trained to associate people and food.....Genius.

YES

indo-dreaming Saturday, 11 Oct 2014 at 06:32 pm new

Yes

Joel Eugene Sl… Saturday, 11 Oct 2014 at 07:38 pm new

Yes

udo Sunday, 12 Oct 2014 at 07:12 am new

YES !
A bit of shark action at Dunsborough beach W.A.yesterday arvo with a shark biting into an inflatable boat.

wellymon Sunday, 12 Oct 2014 at 10:30 am new

Yes

saltyone Sunday, 12 Oct 2014 at 01:38 pm new

Yes, definitely.

Sheepdog Sunday, 12 Oct 2014 at 01:44 pm new

Leroy, this poll has flaws, like most polls..... There are 2 "no" options... Only one "yes " option... That's unbalanced for starters...... There is no "undecided" option..... This may explain why you have only had 7 responses in over 24 hours.....
May I suggest :
Hell yes - ban cage diving in all Australian waters
Yes - Ban recreational cage diving, but true scientific studies by eg - CSIRO etc may continue using cages
No - allow current recreational cage diving practices to continue.
Hell No - Allow expansion and growth of recreational cage diving
Hmmm - undecided, more data needed...

wellymon Sunday, 12 Oct 2014 at 03:20 pm new

What about Uumm No- cage diving only allowed around Sheepios local breaks

Sheepdog Sunday, 12 Oct 2014 at 04:07 pm new

We got salmon cages down here, yeti boy.... Had a 14 footer in dover bay, just cruising around.... You know, the smell of 1000 salmon shitting, seals, attacking the nets yadda yadda.... Do we ban fish farming too?

Btw, I would've voted "hmmm"..... From Leroy's post , I take it there is no cage diving in W.A, yet that seems to be where the majority of attacks have occurred... So, Let's compare the stats for fatal and serious GWS attacks in W.A, say against S.A, and in particular a 100km radius around where cage diving occurs.......

wellymon Sunday, 12 Oct 2014 at 04:17 pm new

Fair call Dawg

Geez I would hate to be your lamb bone, you bite pretty hard ;)

wellymon Sunday, 12 Oct 2014 at 04:28 pm new

.
.

udo Sunday, 12 Oct 2014 at 04:39 pm new

.

floyd Sunday, 12 Oct 2014 at 04:44 pm new

Sheepdog's Yes.

An example of an industry springing up with little or no apparent regulation or forethought on what other impacts there might be.

surfbuzz Sunday, 12 Oct 2014 at 06:32 pm new

Yes

yorkessurfer Sunday, 12 Oct 2014 at 07:01 pm new

I'm not a fan so I'd say yes ban them but I regularly surf less than 40 miles from the cage diving tours and if sharks were being trained to see humans as food you'd think a surfer would have been attacked around here by now?
I'd still rather they didn't do it though just to be on the safe side.

There hasn't been a surfer attacked on the Yorke Peninsula yet(touch wood). A guy skin-diving near Edithburgh sadly got eaten last summer but I heard he was dragging a burly bucket full of chopped up fish behind him so that may have attracted the shark?

udo Sunday, 12 Oct 2014 at 07:04 pm new

@ yorky a windsurfer fatal attack at Corny point area 1999 I think - channel 9 cameraman ?

yorkessurfer Sunday, 12 Oct 2014 at 07:15 pm new

A lot of stories went around about that one udo, even a rumour of a life insurance scam? His wetsuit was found intact? How a shark could get a body out of a suit without damaging it? A scratch/tooth mark in his weight belt was all they had to suggest a shark attack? Who knows but I'm not even sure cage diving was being done in the 90's? He was a fair way out in Hardwicke Bay too so nowhere near the surf zone.

uncle_leroy Sunday, 12 Oct 2014 at 07:30 pm new

Apologies Sheepy, I will make sure that I sign up to the appropriate after hours tertiary education course at earliest convenience.
Good point with the fish farms, the same could be said for cray pots in WA.
The km of coastline:people in the water ratio for SA would be a hell of a lot less than the Margies/Perth coastline where the majority of attack have occured.
Pretty straight forward that the section of coastline with the highest number of people entering the water is where the most fatalities are occuring. Just more chance of a GWS swimming past someone I suppose.
Would be very intersting to do a breakdown on numbers in the water v's location v's attacks and see the actual possibility of being chomped for your local surf area. You could break it up into regions, Vic border to spencer gulf/Lincon, Lincon to wa border, wa border to esperance, esperance to bremer, bremer to augusta, augusta to dunsborogh, dunns to lancelin.
Just seems they head west on migration patterns from being hand fed and the first point of call with a significant numbers of people using the water is Margies, or if they don't bump into anyone by then the Perth metro area. Lots of donks attached to boats in Perth/Margies region that have recieved a bit of dentistry work from a GWS.

udo Sunday, 12 Oct 2014 at 07:34 pm new

There was a charter operator Mark Waller who says he played ACDC music underwater to attract GWS and didn't need to use burley,the pioneer of acoustic attraction.

udo Sunday, 12 Oct 2014 at 07:49 pm new

Yorky I just read the coroners report on the Hardwick Bay attack on Tony Donoghue: the wetsuit was found with bite marks and lacerations consistent with a shark attack, no body was recovered.

yorkessurfer Sunday, 12 Oct 2014 at 08:00 pm new

@udo I'm just going from memory of what was said around the peninsula after the attack. I do recall even in the media at the time it not being as clear cut and certain as that but I will take the coroners opinion. Do you know if they were doing cage diving tours back then?

udo Sunday, 12 Oct 2014 at 08:12 pm new

Wikipedia says cage diving at Neptune started late 1970s.

yorkessurfer Sunday, 12 Oct 2014 at 08:13 pm new

Shit that long ago! I suppose they were doing it in Jaws and that shark footage was filmed around here in the 1970's

yorkessurfer Sunday, 12 Oct 2014 at 08:13 pm new

Shit that long ago! I suppose they were doing it in Jaws and that shark footage was filmed around here in the 1970's

udo Sunday, 12 Oct 2014 at 08:29 pm new

Ron and Val Taylor in 1974 did the Jaws stuff.

simba Sunday, 12 Oct 2014 at 09:29 pm new

From memory i think Rodney Fox was the first to start cage diving in south aus and he worked on Jaws in the early 70s.Funnily enough the reason he started cage diving was because he was attacked by a white pointer in a spearfishing comp in sa in the 60s,lucky to survive with massive injuries.
Anyway no one is saying all attacks are caused by sharks being in contact with cage divers but it certainly doesent send the right message to them.......imo

mothart Monday, 13 Oct 2014 at 04:15 pm new

YES!

Going to be hard to get it banned... A few people with lots of money are making a lot more money.

Sheepdog Monday, 13 Oct 2014 at 05:45 pm new

uncle_leroy wrote:

Apologies Sheepy, I will make sure that I sign up to the appropriate after hours tertiary education course at earliest convenience.

Good point with the fish farms, the same could be said for cray pots in WA.

The km of coastline:people in the water ratio for SA would be a hell of a lot less than the Margies/Perth coastline where the majority of attack have occured.

Pretty straight forward that the section of coastline with the highest number of people entering the water is where the most fatalities are occuring. Just more chance of a GWS swimming past someone I suppose.

Would be very intersting to do a breakdown on numbers in the water v's location v's attacks and see the actual possibility of being chomped for your local surf area. You could break it up into regions, Vic border to spencer gulf/Lincon, Lincon to wa border, wa border to esperance, esperance to bremer, bremer to augusta, augusta to dunsborogh, dunns to lancelin.

Just seems they head west on migration patterns from being hand fed and the first point of call with a significant numbers of people using the water is Margies, or if they don't bump into anyone by then the Perth metro area. Lots of donks attached to boats in Perth/Margies region that have recieved a bit of dentistry work from a GWS.

Don't say sorry, Leroy..... Just don't pull that shit again........ :P..... Just joking, mate..... Maybe we should take this convo' to another thread, and allow the vote to continue..... Cheers, man.....

Surfnsun411 Tuesday, 14 Oct 2014 at 03:05 pm new

On the fence with this one.

Fish farming is defiantly more of an issue than cage diving. At least in Pt Lincoln it is. Hundreds of tuna and kingfish farms fill the area between port Lincoln and spilsby island. During harvest, the blood and guts attracts ALOT of pointers. At last years harvest we had at least 7 pointers hanging around the boat at any one time. And that's just at one farm! The sharks are associating the boats and us divers with food, every day.

That's the real issue here. Shark cage diving is but a drop in the ocean compared to the impact the fish farms have...

yorkessurfer Tuesday, 31 Mar 2015 at 07:23 am new

Shark cage diving tours could be coming to a beach near you near you soon Eyre Peninsula surfers.
Shark cage diving expansion at Eyre Peninsula poses risk to divers and recreational users, Abalone association says
https://au.news.yahoo.com/sa/a/26871461/shark-cage-diving-expansion-at-…

mothart Tuesday, 31 Mar 2015 at 09:37 am new

Both sites mentioned are close to waves (no need to name names).

Would you go surfing if cage diving was going on a stone's throw away?

Just heard on the radio 16 sites are being looked at, anybody know the other 14?

ACB__ Tuesday, 31 Mar 2015 at 10:52 am new

I can't believe the noahs still haven't returned after the orca killed a GQ. That was at least 2 months ago, and that used to be a pretty densely populated area for whites 5 or 7 spotted daily... crazy.

https://www.sharkcagediving.com.au/shark-tours/shark-sightings-2/

Not a single sighting since 2nd Feb. I'm neither for or against cage diving but the result in the orca killing is amazing...

udo Tuesday, 31 Mar 2015 at 11:14 am new

The Farollon island Orca GWS shark kill was 1997 ....dosent seem to have happened since ?

off topic but Interesting the amount of radioactive waste that was dumped there by USA up to 1970....47000 barrels of the stuff.

chin Tuesday, 31 Mar 2015 at 11:15 am new

I bet Calypso are having second thoughts about the sighting brag calender on their web site, not going to have the punters lining up.
I can see this developing into a good old fashioned Port Lincoln simmering grudge fest, considering one of the players has a foot in both camps, ab diving and shark cage diving.

uncle_leroy Tuesday, 31 Mar 2015 at 11:22 am new

ACB__ wrote:

I can't believe the noahs still haven't returned after the orca killed a GQ. That was at least 2 months ago, and that used to be a pretty densely populated area for whites 5 or 7 spotted daily... crazy.

Sounds like a great small business venture if you had an orca as your friend, 5 buckets of slimy mackerel in exchange for a GW head., in exchange for $10k would do.....

udo Tuesday, 31 Mar 2015 at 11:33 am new

.

ACB__ Tuesday, 31 Mar 2015 at 11:32 am new

uncle_leroy wrote:

I can't believe the noahs still haven't returned after the orca killed a GQ. That was at least 2 months ago, and that used to be a pretty densely populated area for whites 5 or 7 spotted daily... crazy.

Sounds like a great small business venture if you had an orca as your friend, 5 buckets of slimy mackerel in exchange for a GW head., in exchange for $10k would do.....

Free Willy still taking work? I'd love to explore and surf the Bight but only with an orca body / surf guard hahaha

barley Tuesday, 31 Mar 2015 at 11:46 am new

Strike and hook had the full list up on fb moth..too bad i reckon..its alright for them to stir the gw's up but the average fisho who sees them gets in trouble..suck eggs i reckon..be interesting to see if attacks decrease in SA..one of the islands has a name very close to one of the best rights in oz..not sure if its incorrect spelling?

udo Tuesday, 31 Mar 2015 at 11:56 am new

The Pages is on the list......berley up backstairs passage the GWS shark hwy ..you must be fucking joking....good luck surfing the Fluerieu .

Rabbits68 Tuesday, 31 Mar 2015 at 04:27 pm new

Yes.

Whilst I would love to see one of these wild amazing creatures of the ocean in the flesh without the risk of being attacked (so from within a cage) I think there must be a correlation between cage diving & shark attacks on humans. I've got no evidence to base that call on but just my opinion.

troppo dichotomy Wednesday, 1 Apr 2015 at 05:04 am new

shark diving should only be allowed with NO CAGE!
that will put it on par with surfing

wellymon Wednesday, 1 Apr 2015 at 01:00 pm new

Cagey Diving!

mothart Wednesday, 1 Apr 2015 at 11:32 pm new

What was that town in Jaws called..,Amity?(long time since I read the book).
Where tourist dollar was more important than human life.

southey Thursday, 2 Apr 2015 at 01:52 am new

Amity ( friends ) , Lincoln is a pretty friendly town . Maybe you were thinking the Amity Affliction .
Martha's Vineyard was the real island used as Amity in the movie . That has surf , connection solved !

mothart Thursday, 2 Apr 2015 at 07:51 am new

Or maybe the connection was the pointer footage was out of there.

udo Thursday, 6 Aug 2015 at 07:28 am new

MR instagram : Mark Richards and his cage diving views.

simba Thursday, 6 Aug 2015 at 08:22 am new

Has Adelaide got a wharf? well stick one off the front of that,think of the money they will make.

salt Thursday, 6 Aug 2015 at 08:23 am new

Yes Yes Yes! Ban it!