Punishment is futile
 

This nearly made me cry.

The ability to show such humanity in the face of sheer emotional trauma, and the recognition that punishment is futile.

People lose clarity when someone is attacked, calling immediately for the perpetrator to be destroyed. When will we realise we have no more right to be here than any other creature? Thank god there are some people who realise how stupid and arrogant it is to return like for like. This relates back to every punishment issue I can think of. I know a lot of you disagree with me on this one, but if this family can show some sense, why can't you?

While I disagree with you on most of the points you stated, I agree with the family in that killing the sharks is pointless.

A sharks gotta eat, right mate?

To a shark, a person is just a funny looking fish, or a seal maybe.

I agree...there is no way the particular shark responsible can be accurately identified. Even so, the attack was not malicious, it was instinct. People swinning look and sound a LOT like a wounded seal or injured fish; a shark's favorite prey. Sharks don't normally eat humans because we don't taste good and are bony compared to the yummy fish and mammals in the sea.

When we enter the ocean, we lose our place at the top of the food chain and enter a world in which we are ill-suited to survive. One, in fact, that is hostile to us and our well-being. Sharks are the superpredators of the oceans and swim at or close to the top of the food chain whereas we humans are several rungs down.

Hunting and killing the shark who attacked the surfer is an act of revenge, pure and simple. It will not deter other sharks from doing the same thing. The shark will not regret it's actions. I doubt it even remembers anymore. Sharks lack higher reasoning skills and the capacity to understand cause and effect. They can't even see well. They identify prey by (unfortunately) biting it. Yes, they can track blood unerringly to it's source over vast distances and sense electrical currents produced by living things to an amazing degree, but they have the brain capacity of a worm.

I vote we leave the sharks alone, post warnings about their presence for the surfers and swinners, and quit watching Jaws.

Brian

Who needs Jaws when we've got "Shark Week" every year on cable? Unerringly on the week my family heads to the beach.

People NEED to realize that when you put yourself in the environment of wild animals then you put yourself at risk, regardless of your reason for being there, especially when you make yourself come off as appetizing or threatening to the animal(s) that live there. This is especially so when it comes to marine environments. The animals really can't hold the blame for doing what they do. Guilt and blame doesn't apply to them as it does to humans. The sea and its tenants are so alien compared to what humans can typically defend against/flee from, not to mention the comparative difficulty of a human moving through ocean surf than a sea critter.

Since colonisation over 200 odd years ago, there have been less than 200 deaths resulting from shark attacks in Australia. It's so rare it's not funny.

There is a theory which has to some extent been proven that sharks that attack people are more likely to do so again, which is the rationalisation I've heard used but there is no way to ID them and they're rare enough as it is.

The other factor is that there are a lot of things off Aussie waters that can kill you, jellyfish, sharks, various seashells, seasnakes and stonefish not to mention some truly evil currents and undertows that so many people are not only unaware of but have no idea how to escape from either. If you choose to jump in the ocean you're taking a risk, if you pull a short straw there is no logic in taking it out on the first animal of the same species that floats into the sights.

Taken to its logical conclusion, it's like threatening to drain the ocean because someone has drowned.

You cannot blame a shark for behaving like a shark.

There is a long tradition of going out to hunt the maneater ... but that pretty much only applies to the big cats, that will continue to prey on man once they figured out that we're pretty much defenseless and have less fur than their usual prey and so are easy to digest.

An idea that just came to mind was to consider what the equivalent predator on land is.

Any ideas people?

Raccoons... those bastards are vicious. :)

There's a strong argument for that.

Brains, hands, mask, yeah I can see that.

I'll go with polar bear.

They eat, they sleep, they make little bears. If you've seen the documentaries that include shots of the migration ... where people who own houses along the path have to stay indoors for days and have bars on their windows to keep the bears out, you'll see the similarity to the sharks.

Polar bears are cute and fuzzy, though, so people don't think of them with the same kind of fear that they do the sharks.

I happen to think sharks are cool.

Way cool.

I need to go to Baltimore Aquarium to stare at them again cool. (Last time I went I tricked my friends and their children into a wrong turn so I could go see them again!)

I bar my windows when the sharks come by too ;)
(I know what you mean..)

*Could've sworn I posted my reply earlier...guess not*


Actually, this is the part that had me puzzled:
""What we actually need is a public education campaign to teach people how to live with sharks," she said. "They are a fact of life, they rarely attack humans, but occasionally it does happen. Instead of avoiding the issue, let's start educating the public about it."

Why on earth would anyone want to purposely surf/live/swim among/deal with sharks outside of perhaps being a marine biologist? As much as I miss swimming in the ocean, I also know that there is too much danger in it for me to go back in it. I don't care how rare shark attacks are, the bottom line is this: they will freaking try to eat you if they see you and think you are food...period! I really think man needs to stop trying so hard to get up into the ass of Mother Nature all of the time and just stay safe!


When people stop swimming among sharks?

Well, if that works for you, great. However, that was the family's choice and I'm sure that some people have wondered why they chose to not have the sharks killed. I say that's their business, just like if I were to have choosen to say go ahead and kill them is MY business. It's not for anyone to wonder "why" and so forth.

And I'm going to leave it at that.

I've seen some interesting documentaries on polar bears.

There was this one guy who actually interacted with them as if he were a polar bear... and they reciprocated.

They seem to have a bit more intellect than sharks as well, or at least personality.