Thursday, May 23, 2013

Megalobomb - brave or suicidal?


I would say, suicidal - the more as she lives right there!
Having dared to call foul on some of the BS coming out of South Africa, I can tell you plenty of unappealing stories about the tribalism, the idiotic conspiracy theories, the circling of the wagons and the lynching of the messenger - even in cases where the end result of the fracas was a clear overall improvement like in the case of the ZIBS

But of course that's why she's DaBomb!
She's got guts, and being both a researcher and an industry insider, she's clearly got the faculty to analyze the sharky shenanigans like few others do - if any at all!

And once again, I must concur with her assessment.
The mimic kelp, or whatever, is a load of unsubstantiated crap - much like all those magnetic and other gizmos by Sharkdefense where the effects, albeit unequivocal, are simply not strong and predictable enough to be of any real practical use. 

But maybe I'm wrong,
But then, how about first performing the rigorous research and only then dazzling the public with some spectacular, replicable and peer reviewed data - 1'000 years later

Or here's a suggestion.
Deploy a circle of plastic kelp in Shark Alley and then throw in a) plenty of bait and b) ABC4's Shark-conserving bikini bimbos - obviously whilst he films them in super slo-mo, LIVE! 
Now, THAT's what I call REAL science!!!

But I'm digressing as usual.
All I wanted to say is, read this great post by Megalobomb!
To be continued no doubt!

And, we shall keep checking on her well-being and physical integrity!

3 comments:

Megalobomb said...

Day 3: Still alive and the plastic pollution is still in the alley!

Thanks for the repost!

DaShark said...

Happy about the former - not so much about the latter!

And the Sharks, what are they saying?

Dr Andreotti said...

There you go:

White sharks can be deterred by strong barium ferrite magnets and a visual barrier:

O’Connell, C. P., S. Andreotti, M. Rutzen, M. Meÿer, and P. He. 2012. The use of permanent magnets to reduce elasmobranch encounter with a simulated beach net. 2. The great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias). Ocean & Coastal Management 97:20–28.

Bull sharks can be deterred by strong barium ferrite magnets:

O’Connell, C. P., S.-Y. Hyun, S. H. Gruber, T. J. O’Connell, G. Johnson, K. Grudecki, and P. He. 2014. The use of permanent magnets to reduce elasmobranch encounter with a simulated beach net. 1. The bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas). Ocean & Coastal Management.

Highly motivated white sharks don’t swim through the Sharksafe Barrier:

O’Connell, C. P., S. Andreotti, M. Rutzen, M. Meÿer, C. A. Matthee, and P. He. 2014. Effects of the Sharksafe barrier on white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) behavior and its implications for future conservation technologies. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 460:37–46.

Highly motivated bull sharks don’t swim through the Sharksafe Barrier:

O’Connell, C. P., S.-Y. Hyun, C. B. Rillahan, and P. He. 2014. Bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas) exclusion properties of the sharksafe barrier and behavioral validation using the ARIS technology. Global Ecology and Conservation 2:300–314.


But then, of course, if you prefer to rather kill the sharks in the nets or baited hooks, rather than looking for alternative solutions, you're as anyone else, entitled to your own opinion.