White sharks in Europe?

[Huan]

At the risk of being sensationalist.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/australia/...376918,00.html

[mishu1984]

Huan, actually italy during the famous Matanzas there have been GWS in the nets. also there have been incidents of capture of GWS in the Med, but they are a much rarer sight

[Huan]

Mishu
Maybe I should have titled it White sharks in Northern Europe?
I realise that there are GWS in the Med but very few records north of The Med.
Strange really when you consider the food sources around Ireland and UK (seals,dolphins,tuna) but the last recorded catch was in the 70's from around La Rochelle.

[island_sands]

About five years ago a GW took an Italian fisherman's catch. He videoed it and it was on TV... they definitely are about. it is thought that they go to med to give birth. Baby GWs were often seen around Cabo Verde islands in the 1970s.

There are stacks of GWs around Malta and they even proposed conservation programmes for them in 1999.

A total of 41 reliably-reported interactions involving direct unprovoked attacks on humans are recorded from the region of the Med. (not many in comparison to other areas). Fatalities were recorded in 49% of these cases and the great white shark was confirmed or reliably attributed as implicated in 54% of the total cases. The majority of Mediterranean cases have occurred (in decreasing order) within Italian, Croatian and Greek coastal waters.

A study by Ian Ferguson showed the following:

Cosmopolitan but rather infrequent or rare; from Gibraltar to the Bosphorus (not Black Sea) but more regular in Western and Central Mediterranean, all coasts but especially Western Sicily (Egadi Islands), Sicilian Channel and Tunisian Coasts from Cape Bon to Djerba; Maltese archipelago; occasional in Gulf of Lyons (Sete, Palavas & Grau-du-Rois), Côte d'Azur (now sporadic); Ligurian Sea (Varazze, Genova, south to La Spezia), Tyrrhenian Sea (Isola d'Elba; Sardinia; San Felice Circeo) and Ionian Sea, Calabria / Messina; once frequent in Northern Adriatic until 1970's, now sporadic and generally encountered on the former Yugoslavian side (Kvarner Gulf and Dalmatia); sporadic in the Aegean, generally northerly sites (Thermaikos, Thassos, Kavalla, Foça); sporadic off Cyprus, Lebanon and Israel ('Akko); captures from Libya, Egypt, Algeria and Morocco poorly documented although the species is recorded on these coasts.

They are out there guys... but unlikely to be encountered close to the coasts.

Another thought... GW eat fish for the first few years of their life and then switch to mammals.. so as full on adults they would have to live in areas closer to their diet.

[mundial]

here you have the attacks
http://sharks-attacks.netfirms.com/a...white/Medi.htm

[Huan]

Here is a good site for Med stats.
http://www.zoo.co.uk/~z9015043/medsaf1.html

[Memo]

Ey!!! we are diving in here and I dont wanna start thinking about a huuuge teethy smiling face while doing aspetto!

[Bluehugh]

In the Med there was White Sharks until Monk Seal was almost extinguished.
Nowadays is incredibly strange to see one, but is seen during the 'Tunara' in Sicily (July, August I think).

Greetings,
Edu

[Pekka]

Yack, I dont want to feel like I need to watch my back while diving here in UK.... hmm I better change my setup of having my bleeding fish tied to my waist while hunting some more... On the other hand I could do with couple of degrees warmer water.. so there are good sides to this.. I guess...

Pekka

[Freediver81]

Here is a map pointing out area's where Great White Sharks can be found!

Said

[island_sands]

coool... i guess that doesn't leave us much option than to go ice diving...!! hahahahaha.. they are all over, practically. And in the tropics we have the tigers, which just love spearfishermen with juicy belts...

[miles]

ice-diving?? You forget about Orca's/Killer whales?? No thanx, i'll take my chances with GW's!!! At least they don't hunt in packs.............

Regards
miles

[island_sands]

There was a documentary on Animal Planet yesterday... Orcas have not been known to attack divers/swimmers.. (just in that horrific movie) very few incidents..

[Ben Gowland]

No Orca attacks in the WILD - there have been attacks in captivity (unsuprisingly).

[miles]

Hiya

I know that there are no recorded attacks on humans by Orca's in the wild. HOWEVER, i have been in their company on a COUPLE of occasions and they SCARE me silly!!!!


When-ever we get schools of dolphins, all you have to do is run your boat parallel to the school and see whether they want to play. If you keep 30-50m away from them, moving at about the same speed they're moving, most of the time some dolphins will break away from the school and come and play with the boat. They'll jump out, just in front of the boat, and generally act silly, like doing jumps and somersaults. I normally thoroughly enjoy their antics.

HOWEVER, the ORCAS i've encountered ALSO act in a similar way!!!! Watching a 3-5TON animal jumping out of the water RIGHT in front of your boat is extremely unnerving!!!!!!!! Remember, we go 40nm offshore in a 6.5m Semi Rigid inflatable and these cute buggers can be as big as 8m!!!!

Besides, i've seen them hunting penguins on the ice, when they break peices of ice off and then chomping those penguins. Now imagine they figure out what tasty morsels are aboard boats...........................scary though!!!

Oh, and i sure would not like to be the FIRST to be attacked by a ORCA!!!!

Regards
miles