Should Shark Wetsuits be compulsory

Your last sentence has just validated my point "we need to focus on the things that kills us more often rather than consider the very unlikely event of a shark attack". Things which have a high PROBABILITY of killing us if we undertake the activity are likely to kill us - your figures do not show the PROBABILITY of death given you are doing the activity. Trust me - this is what I once did as a profession for an insurance company and your numbers are practically meaningless.

To highlight this. Lets say that Perth pop is 1 Million and 1/2 a percent of these people surf daily. So that makes roughly 1.8250M (1M*0.005*365) surf sessions in a year. 3 people have had fatal attacks in the last year so probability of dying is 1.64e-06 - very small indeed. Now look at texting say the average person sends 3 texts a day. that means annually 1.095e09 texts are sent from Perth residents so unless 1800 (1.095e09 * 1.64-06) people in Perth have died from texting in the last year (despite the fact that your global number is 6000 and 1800 is 30% of this, yet Perths population is .0125% of the global population - suggesting Perths residents are extremely dangerous texters) then sharks are more dangerous than texting (both of which are very unlikely to kill)

Finally!
Someone with some rational logic in this discussion!

Sadly though, no one will listen.

Never let science get in the way of a good story! If we did that then there would be no religion at all!.....

How can I pray to Zephurus the wind god of westerlies if my god has been scienced out of existance!?!

hi Dave

does that really disturb you? i would have thought anyone who's been fishing north of WA metropolis has had the ol' hammerhead school experience if you got on a good patch, particularly in exmouth etc. not uncommon to surf y&*$ near exmouth in the morning, fish at lunch time and try not to lose half your catch on the way up to the boat bitten in half, then kite out near the same fishing spots in the arvo. no surprise (and it is probably a good thing) that there is that much sea life out the back of rotto i reckon. i also wonder about whether the sharks have acclimatised to these people machines that throw old bait, off cuts, kakas etc over the side on the way in and out to sea over the past 50 years... easy pickings for the sharks i expect.

also very easy for the news room to cut and edit footage from god knows how many hours to make it dramatic. not to mention that every old fisho i know has a GW story that scares the pants off me... but the fish gets longer every time he tells it.

not stirring here, just curious if people really buy into these sorts of stories from the worst australian. i always picture some editor telling the work experience kid to find another shark story to keep the ball rolling too...

anyhow, good winds to you.

There's a bit of intelligent commentary on the men in suits issue here today-

(WARNING: CONTAINS SCIENCE)

theconversation.com/how-to-prevent-shark-attacks-20890

They list a few things to do to reduce the risk of shark bite-


Stay out of the water if sharks have been sighted in the area.

Stay close to shore (within 30m of the water???s edge).

Don???t go in the water alone (stay in groups).

Avoid water temperatures lower than 22C.

Avoid water depths of greater than 5m when swimming or surfing.

Avoid swimming after heavy storms, or in low light conditions (dusk and dawn).

Avoid swimming if there are seals, dolphins, whales or baitfish nearby.


I regularly break at least a few of these rules and will continue to take my chances.

Looks like you're dead right on most points kiterboy.

I took a quick look at the report linked to in the Conversation article above, www.fish.wa.gov.au/Documents/occasional_publications/fop109.pdf

Stay close to shore - True, only one attack in WA close to shore as of 12/2012
Stay in groups - uncertain
Low light - No

Recommends not swimming near whale carcasses??????..yeah, thanks???...