Sharks: Nature's Media

Remember the Summer of the Shark? And how suddenly there were millions of sharks, all of them out to get you and your family.

Back then sharks were everywhere and… OH MY GOD! SHARK!! SH-SH-SHARK!!! No wait it’s just a bit of wood. Turns out shark attacks were decreasing (much like their numbers) and the whole thing was just a way of getting through a slow news period.

Well New Zealand is having another one of these media beat-up things. Pretty soon we’ll have people going out to kill the sharks, filling the water with chum which will, ironically, attract sharks while the fishermen get drunk. SHARK!!!!

Now even the politicos are in on the act. National leader John Key (SHARK!!!!!) has called for limits on commercial crab pots at popular beaches over the summer, saying they act as "human berley" by attracting sharks to swimming areas.

Naturally the guy setting the pots is not using actual berley made from humans nor even berley for humans. So that is a (SHARK!!!!) misnomer

Mr Key, who just happens to have a holiday home at Omaha, said regulations should be introduced so Ministry of Fisheries officers could stop high-volume use of commercial crab pots on heavily used beaches (during the peak summer period where he holidays) in case they attracted sharks, which they don’t. (SHARK!!!!)

The Department of Conservation has informed Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton that there is no evidence crab pots attract more sharks than would otherwise be there.

But Mr Key said “residents” (Pumpkin Patch owner Greg Muir, who has owned a holiday home at Omaha for seven years) approached him late last month concerned that a fisherman was regularly setting about 40 crab pots.

The two were backed by hard evidence, just kidding (SHARK!!!!). They were backed by Daniel Baturic, president of Orewa's Surf Life Saving Club, who said sharks seemed more prevalent when pots were in the area. And there are more pots in summer when there are more sharks. So perhaps the sharks are increasing the umber of crab pots and bathers not the other way around.

The ministry's inshore fisheries manager John Taunton-Clark said he would track down the fisherman in question and explain the residents' concerns, but was powerless to do any more.

SHARK!!!!