60 Minutes Great White Shark

Look! Friendly ocean creature!

Surfing'due south pre-eminent journalist slams Sixty Minutes' kid-like take on Australia's Great White crisis! "What would you lot do if you swam into … Jaws?"

11 months ago

"Nosotros're to blame for the surprising boom in shark bites…"

The world's pre-eminent surf journalist Sean Doherty, a man who will crumble basic and beverage blood in the pursuit of a story, has come out swinging at tabloid current diplomacy show 60 Minutes for its kid-similar have on Australia'south Great White Crisis.

In episode 39, Close Encounters, which comes two weeks after a Perth man swimming fifty feet from shore was disappeared by a Great White, nosotros get the usual tabloid arc on shark attacks, a petty shock and horror ("What would you do if you swam into Jaws,") followed past resolution and reassurance – technology volition salvage usforth with what might loosely be called an expert on the matter saying, well, more people in the h2o ergo more attacks.

Nothing to see here, move on etc.

Doherty, who is the writer of the definitive MP: the Life of Michael Peterson , My Brother's Keeper: the official Bra Boy's story, once voted the World's Best Surf Reporter, who owns print magazine Surfing World and who helped steer public opinion confronting new oil drilling in Australian waters, was savage in his assault.

When hour tweeted, "Dr Nathan Hart, a world-leading animal neurologist, puts the increase in shark encounters down to one unproblematic fact: humans are sharks are mixing more than ever before,

Doherty responded,

"1 simple fact? More people? All recent fatalities take been victims of White shark attack. White sharks have been protected in Australian waters for 20 years. Breeding cycle 12-15. Your reporter just nodded his way blithely through this claim."

Doherty knows.

He grew up surfing the NSW mid-north Coast and has seen that dreamy lil stretch of surf heaven turn into a superhighway for Great Whites.

In May, he wrote about life in Tuncurry after a surfer was killed by a fifteen-human foot Great White at 1 of the area'southward all-time waves.

Growing up in Forster and surfing during the '80s and '90s, I never really encountered sharks, not whites anyway. Nosotros'd catch whalers exterior while fishing, only you never saw sharks while surfing. This was the heyday of the Tuncurry Bar, half a mile out to bounding main off Tuncurry Beach at the oral cavity of Wallis Lake, one of the best right-handers on the east declension. When the Bar broke, nobody ever thought twice about sharks. They were never forepart of heed.

Just that's changed in recent years. With the white shark protected since 1999, and the master east coast breeding ground just down the declension, they're regular visitors. When the NSW Section of Master Industries began their trial of Smart drum-lines in the area back in 2017, they immediately confirmed what many local surfers already knew. The DPI picked up 65 white sharks in half dozen months between the town beaches of Tuncurry and Burgess, most of them juveniles betwixt two and iii metres.

Obvious questions.

Volition the chat, every bit it's called, plow specifically to Great Whites or stick to "sharks" thus muddying the debate with platitudes similar more sharks are killed past humans than vice-versa, cue photos of sharks being finned, and when will whatever of the supposed experts, none of whom appear to surf, get in at a number for the current population of Not bad Whites?

And, to the point of more people surfing ergo more attacks, I'd suggest the numbers of swimmers off Perth has dwindled to about zero, most of 'em swimming so shut to shore they almost hitting the sand with their arm strokes, and at known Nifty White haunts surfer numbers are down dramatically.

Or I'm wrong.

Tell me.

Later, VAL.

Tybee Island, Georgia'south most pop surf spot, experiencing horrific surge of headless roosters, cups of blood being left on beach as experts wonder if voodoo is beingness proficient to cull herd of VALs!

The answer?

The VAL-pocalypse is truly upon the states, each and every ane, but how many make new developed learners practice you see effectually your local lineups each day? 10? Twenty? Fifty? 70 wouldn't be out of the question and we surfers, we proud few who beginning paddled out before the age of twelve, are left with a real quandary.

What and so shall we practise?

Well, a brave soul in Georgia may take stumbled upon the answer.

Voodoo.

Georgia, directly higher up Florida and much like it except with a adept higher team, is not known for its surf but certainly has some and mostly on Tybee Isle. Many surf schools there. Much soft meridian though likewise headless birds left on the beach and cups of claret.

Per a report from Atlanta's Channel 2 Activeness News:

Someone is leaving what appears to exist animal sacrifices on the beach at Tybee Island. Channel 2 Action News has learned that police have establish headless birds on the embankment five times in 2021.

"I touched one, but it sure looks like blood to me," said a witness on constabulary body camera video. "Yep, those would be roosters," replied the officer.

Police force said 2 headless roosters and six cerise plastic cups with dried claret were found on the beach in belatedly September.

"Oh, cups of blood! No, I don't know if they were performing some type of ritual or what, just I don't like it," said Stephanie Keeler of O'Fallon, Illinois, who was visiting Tybee Island's beach.

Channel ii Activeness News filed an open records request with the City of Tybee Isle and learned that headless birds were plant on the embankment five times in 2021.

"We don't know exactly why it keeps happening. The manner appears to be ritualistic, simply we don't know whether information technology's part of organized faith or what the intent might be," said Lt. Emory Randolph with the Tybee Island Constabulary Department.

I recollect brilliant.

I think if we, each and every 1, purposed to leave headless birds and cups of blood on our favorite VAL infested spots we'd soon clean it all up.

No?

A better idea?

Well, spill those beans.

The bad one-time days.

Reaching peak abundance of caution, New Zealand lifeguards ordered to wear masks when plucking drowning swimmers, surfers from Davy Jones' Locker!

So long, CPR.

It is summertime in beautiful New Zealand, or almost summertime, and the beaches are filled with happy locals who have spent much of the last year-plus locked indoors. They are out now, and free, but maybe besides gratuitous flocking to beaches and forgetting how to swim, surf.

In that location were two mass rescues, yesterday. One in Raglan after hundreds of people got sucked out to sea in a giant rip tide. Xiv souls were saved and none lost. Another in Auckland where thirteen souls were snatched from Davy Jones' Locker and none lost.

Lifeguards, brave and bold, hoisting dripping wet, gasping men and women into boats, helping them to shore.

Lifeguards, courageous and resolute, pumping chests and not performing CPR with their mouths because their mouths and noses are covered with abundant caution.

Yes, New Zealand became the first land to require its lifeguards to habiliment masks whilst on duty. Raglan's patrol captain Molly Abrams told Radio New Zealand that all lifeguards had been given cotton masks to wear "when practicable" but that "saving lives was still a priority."

CPR seems outdated, anyhow, so all practiced.

Wavepool war heats up.

Wild West-style showdown looms in Queensland wavepool war every bit developer declares, "There's only room in this town for one of united states of america!"

Get your guns, boys.

It's a trivial ironic that the Sunshine Declension, sixty miles of warm-water coastline that includes the iconic points of Noosa Heads, is the site of iii proposed wavepool developments.

You've heard about the WSL's $ane.2 billion Slater pool and "intensive housing" development on a Sunshine Coast floodplain.

(For groundwork read:Longtom investigates WSL's billion-dollar wavepool development, parts one and two, here and hither.)

The other two tanks include a "$130 million mega waterpark" featuring an Endless Surf wavepool, and a $25 mill Waco-way puddle (American Wave Machines) on the site of an former gas station in the Glass Business firm Mountains.

The Endless Surf tank, office of a $130 mill "mega h2o park".

All of 'em are "holistic" and promote "wellness" and "yoga and meditation."

Now, the developer of the $130 manufactory park, which has already been approved, has made a submission confronting the Glass Firm Mountains puddle claiming the Sunshine Coast ain't large enough for the both of 'em.

American Wave Machines tank in the Glass House mountains, RRP $25 mill.

"It is considered that the market place for more than one surf park facility on the Sunshine Coast is unsustainable at this stage," the submission reads, calculation a puddle needs a quarter-million customers a yr to work and that ain't gonna happen if the joint is littered with the things.

Howevs, of the 980 submissions made in regards to the Drinking glass Business firm Mountains pool, most were in favour.

The Kelly Slater WSL evolution, meanwhile, promises a 20,000-capacity stadium, 1500 "waterfront homes", a six-star eco-resort, restaurants, confined, a retail village and "an environmental education centre based on the site's wetlands and nearby waterways."

And that's before yous even step into the principal arena.

"Our Kelly Slater Wave Co applied science is the biggest wave height wise and past far the longest man made wave in the globe and volition stage WSL events," World Surf League Australia general manager Andrew Stark'due south told the Courier Mail. "(The wave pools) could coexist on the Sunshine Declension equally the production offering is very different."

Stark has described the local surfing community every bit "ecstatic and excited."

Common cold water Teahupo'o.

Surprising new study suggests that surfing in Ireland leads to profound improvements in mental health: "Immersion in cold water releases feel-good endorphins, exposure to burly man-eating slabs puts a pep in the step!"

Hearty folk.

One of my very favorite people in the metaverse* is Jimmy the Carper née Saint who tin can ofttimes be plant right here on BeachGrit sharing various wisdoms and hot takes. Now, I accept ever causeless the same to be Irish living in Ireland and I feel that I am correct and then you lot tin can imagine my pleasure, today (on my 11th wedding anniversary), when I stumbled across a report on Raidió Teilifís Éireann that definitively suggested surfing in Ireland improves 1's mental health.

Per a simply-released report:

Early findings take shown surf therapy to boost factors that aid protect against the development of mental illness, such as resilience, confidence, social skills and emotional regulation. Furthermore, young people reported feeling happier and physically fitter. At the same time, parents noted improved advice and progress at schoolhouse post-obit a six-week surf therapy course.

However, the question remains, how are these therapeutic benefits achieved through something every bit simple equally surfing? One of the many unique aspects of surf therapy is its employ of Republic of ireland's beautiful, rugged coastline as a therapeutic space. Offering programmes in less traditional, non-clinical, breezy environments can reduce the stigma and shame often associated with help-seeking for emotional problems. Moreover, the natural surroundings may exist part and parcel of the power of surf therapy.

Wonderful to know and also makes me very much more in awe of Jimmy and his brethren, sisters as the only surf spot I know in Ireland is Mullaghamore, the "cold water Teahupo'o."

That making anyone happier is… something.

Viva Ireland.

*Is the cyberspace called the metaverse now or did I miss a turn somewhere?