Great white shark fears grip Sydney
Date: 07-Mar-02
Country: AUSTRALIA
Author: Michael Christie
Shark experts were sceptical yesterday, but the reported sightings of a 2.5-metre (8-foot) long shark have triggered concern among Sydney's yachtsmen, kayakers and swimmers.
"It was about eight-feet long and came right out of the water in front of us shaking its head from side to side. We all saw it," Bill Fenelon, a skipper with a yacht-charter company, told The Sydney Morning Herald.
Aggressive bull sharks have been known to cruise around Sydney harbour in search of prey but a great white has never been officially recorded in Sydney's harbour.
Fenelon, who has dived with sharks, said the shark sighted last Thursday was grey on top with a white underbelly.
The great white, or white pointer as the shark made infamous by the "Jaws" movies is known in local lingo, rarely enters confined waters, preferring deep ocean where it can chase large shoals of fish or offshore islands inhabited by seals, experts said.
LEAPING SHARK
Yacht skipper Chris Henry told the Herald he saw the shark off the harbourside Taronga zoo.
He and his passengers saw a large shape in the water and then watched as a grey shark leaped into the air three times.
"It was an unsettling experience for all of us," he said.
One of his passengers, scuba diver Jules Clyde-Smith, said it turned on its side as it jumped and flashed its jaws.
"It definitely wasn't a dolphin. It was big and grey and had a dorsal fin... it looked to me like a white pointer."
Talkback radio was inundated by listeners claiming they too had seen the beast - chasing kids on Laser sailing boats.
Nino Kinnunen, head aquarist at Manly Oceanworld, said a great white had never been officially recorded in the harbour.
In the 1950s and 1960s, there were a couple of shark attacks that experts examining the teeth marks said could have been carried out by a great white, but the evidence was inconclusive.
There was no question that there were sharks, he added, but they were bronze and dusky whalers that grow to 1.5 metres - a size that to an untrained eye could easily appear a metre longer.
"There's always a possibility it's a white shark caught in a current... but it's 95 percent (certain) it's a bull shark or a dusky whaler," Kinnunen told Reuters.
Marine biologists say Sydney Harbour has become cleaner in the last decade as environmental projects cut back on pollution.
Anecdotal evidence suggests fish stocks are increasing, and that could be expected to attract larger numbers of predators.
Nick Otway, senior research scientist at New South Wales Fisheries and a leading shark expert, said if it was a great white, then the reports also indicated there was little danger.
Studies had found that when young, or less than about 3.5 metres in length, great whites feed almost exclusively on fish.
They then switch to mammalian prey, such as seals or whale carcasses, and the odd person - although shark defenders insist they do not really like the taste of human flesh.
"Even if that was a white it's not going to be a threat to humans... it's a small individual targetting fish," Otway said.