Shark Attacks - Da Shark in Depth, on Target

The recent shark attacks in Sharm el Shiekh have been unprecedented, causing many in the industry to question how, in the short space of a week, 5 swimmers were attacked leaving behind one fatality.

Industry generated analysis has been for the most part excellent, and yesterday Da Shark in Fiji wrote some of the best shark attack coverage and analysis yet.

Update: Two different pelagic species have been confirmed in these attacks.

We are leaning towards conditioning as a main driver for these attacks. A cargo ship carrying 120,000 head of sheep dumped an unknown number of dead animals several miles off the coast at Tiran Island in the weeks prior to these attacks. This carcass dump may have provided the floating conditioning opportunity, over time, to radically change pelagic sharks normal caution towards unknown objects in the water.

Da Shark on Sharm el Shiekh 2010

Time for a preliminary post mortem.

Like everybody interested in Sharks, I’ve been closely following the news tidbits trickling out from Sharm El Sheikh and the various opines in the media and the blogosphere.

There’s much of the usual fluff and idiocy - but there’s also some stellar stuff.

Take the “experts”. Whilst many prate and pontificate, I found this remarkable interview with Avi Baranes. Now THIS is the kind of person you gotta consult, a highly reputable Shark researcher who has been investigating those very waters for a very long time – and accordingly, the interview brims with factual information and quietly addresses and dispels the usual myths.

Bravo!

Equally noteworthy are the posts by Richard, by the SOSF and by Michael Scholl - however with some caveats that I’d like to address below.

Complete Post.