“Establishment science is colouring outside the
lines when it comes to the reality of shark attacks on humans.”
Another surfer disappeared by a Great White shark in
Australia. This time at Duke of Orleans Bay, east of
Esperance on West Australia’s uber-sharky south coast.
It’s hard to even
begin to imagine the situation facing the loved ones and friends of
the unfortunate surfer involved. Not to mention the coastal
community in that beautiful part of the world. It’s not
presumptuous to say that the thoughts of the surfing world are with
them.
Yet once again the response from authorities tends towards
misinformation. The official line of reportage is that the surfer
was involved in a “serious shark bite incident”.
Orwell’s dystopian classic Nineteen Eighty
Four deals with a state untethered from the society it
governs. Its institutions are not only removed from
the people they purport to serve but from any semblance to reality
itself.
In our current times when the bashing of elite institutions rates as highly
as sportsball amongst the misshapen and unsightly plebeian masses,
there’s no shortage of punters willing to becry a return to such
Orwellian circumstance. Perhaps with justification.
As surfers, we are at the coal face of apparent institutional
chicanery. We appear to find ourselves confronted by
a scientific establishment which seems determined to undermine any
street cred it may have once had and replace it with hollow appeals
to authority. The
surfer/scientist relationship is teetering on becoming combative.
Surfers are faced with statements and claims from the scientific
establishment which are based on no empirical science whatsoever
and we are expected to consume these subjective opinions
wholesale.
For example the scientific community, which is not a monolith
but its media facing Talking Heads presents as such, is steadfast
in its insistence that sharks don’t attack humans. No, they merely
bite people. The insinuation is that sharks don’t want to eat
people and that attacks are nothing more than unfortunate incidents
arising from mistaken identity on the innocent shark’s
behalf.
This despite the regular full consumption of shark attack
victims. This despite hundreds – thousands! – of recorded episodes
of sharks returning time and again to finish their human meal in
front of eye witnesses. This despite historically infamous
accounts such as the people-buffet after the sinking of the USS
Indianapolis in WW2.
Yet still the Orwellian dictate that every surfer chewed and
swallowed into the gullet of a shark must be reported as a bite.
Lest those toothy carnivores develop an unsightly reputation as
consumers of flesh…
Then there’s the utter dismissal of the concept of the Rogue
Shark. An idea that’s portrayed by the scientific establishment as
a kooky conspiracy up there with invading Martians and their
penchant for anal probes on unwitting flyover country farming
folk.
Yet is there any empirical evidence at all that certain
individual sharks aren’t open to the idea of chowing down on a
surfer every now and again if the seals, dolphins and snapper are a
bit elusive at the moment? Particularly if they’ve had a bit of
previous success in the game.
Just because all sharks don’t enjoy the taste of humans, doesn’t
mean that some particular individuals might not find it quite
acceptable in a pinch. Metaphorically, most people I know would
rather eat a yard of undercooked foreskin than an Australian Salmon
but I also know a bloke who eats them on occasion because they’re
easy to catch.
Point being, that there’s no accounting for taste. So where does
the scientific community get off dismissing the notion of a large
predatory fish occasionally trending outside the realms of known
behaviour ….especially when the science itself always comes with a
caveat regarding the impenetrable conditions confronting discovery
of such an elusive species.
Where is the humility of science in all this?
It seems to have been subjugated to political activism. A skewed
and almost misanthropic desire to reconcile the worldwide reality
of overfishing with the mortal threat posed by surfers who play
among these XXL flesh eating super predators.
Just to put my colours to the mast – I’m against the culling of
potential man eating fish. Because killing sharks accused of
potential threat is nothing more than punishment for thought crime
in the aquatic realm. If a shark harms a human then dispatch it to
Davey Jones’ locker ASAP.
Until that time it’s another innocent animal going about its
business.
In this instance it’s no less than the business of being majestic
and magnificent and representative of the irreducible power of
nature. This remains true despite the similar hyperbole bleated by
the urban Greens who’ve never strayed beyond knee deep at a
chlorinated public pool.
Establishment science is colouring outside the lines when it
comes to the reality of shark attacks on humans.
Recalibration of the field is in order if credibility is to be
maintained. Surfers are natural allies with the scientific
community, our voices and perspectives should be valued, not
dismissed.
