Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1911-03-07
THE CoWARDLY SHARK.
Experiences In Australia With Finny
Maneater.

Experiences In Australia With Finny
Maneater.
Australia is surrounded by sea
which is literally seetning with sharks.
1t is not only along the northern coast
that they are to be found. Even In the
waters about Hobart, says Egbert T.
Russell, writing in the Australian
monthly the Lone Hand, the shark is
common object, and it is not so many
years ago that fishing party was
grievously alarmed when it's boat was
surrounded by a dozen or more ten
footers, which lent interest to the pro-
ceedings by tapping their tails against
the sides of the boat and swapping at
a frenziedly pulled oar.
Yet despite the fact that the shark is
common in every Australian sea and
exceedingly so in every Australian es-
tuary and that people of varying de-
grees Of foolhardiness battle in both to
the number of probably millions yearly,
shark tragedies are so rare as to shock
the entire community when they occur
| Why the shark should hesitate to take
advantage of the enormous quantities
of fresh human meat provided for him
is a mystery which none of the theories
advanced explain satisfactorily.
Perhaps the most feasible explana-
tion of all is that nature has implanted
| in all the lower forms of animal life
horrible fear of man, fear which has
a considerable amount of reason in it
and without which there would proba-
| bly, be no lower forms Of life at all to-
day and man himself would be a vege-
tartan or a cannibal.
During the last hundred years thou
sands of boats have upset in Sydney
harbor, an area infested by sharks, and
yet not one Of the f1oundering yachts
men has ever been attacked by shark.
spectacle of a huge white sail lying
over the water scared away all the
sharks in the vicinity.
It is not so many years ago that dur
ing high sea shark was washed into
the Bogie Hole at Bondi, just outside
the baths. Next day the discovery was
made and a score of residents gathered
round, each propounding schemes for
capturing the fish alive. In the middle
of the consultation a man in bathing
costume-either skilled in shark habits
or yearning for fame-made a cynical
remark about catching the shark him
self while the others were talking
about it and dived with loud splash
into the hole. The shark was so
frightened that by a supershark effort
it scrambled rather than swan over
the ledge of rock running awash and
escaped into the bay.
Only a few yards away within the
present year a ten foot gray nurse
shark forgot it's principles or grew sud-
denly courageous and made dash for
bather just outside the surf. 1t had
not gained many feet before the shout
ing and splashing of the other bathers
in the water knocked out all its cour-
age and it turned tail and fled. Fur
ther, there is the experience Of every
regular surf bather on all the beaches
that though sharks may hover about
the bathing spots they refrain from
venturing close so long as a number
of bathers are present.
At night, when there are few bathers
or none at all, it is possible to catch
sharks from any of the ocean beaches
around Sydney with a hook and line
thrown from the waters edge. That
they are so caught is manifest by the
bodies which may be seen lying along
the beaches in early mornings, in def
ance of local ordinances, bags of as
many as dozen being recorded for four
hours work. But in the daytime, when
the shadows are thick with bathers,
not a shark is to be seen, or if fin
does show up occasionally it gives
wide berth to the points where the
bathers are thick. The belief of the
surf bather that though the shark may
attack him alone it is not sufficiently
courageous to venture near four or five
or more, seems optimistic to the person
who knows not surf, but experience
seems to prove that it has a solid foun-
daton of fact
While the shark is generally timid to
the verge of cowardice and has never IN
one recorded instance summoned up
enough courage to pit itself against a
number of human beings it has dis
played extra audacity on occasions.
Some years back a man on horseback,
stirrup deep, on the foreshore of South
Melbourne, was dragged from his horse
and killed. Only last year a boatman
up to his knees in the shadows of Woy
Woy as he tied up his boat was at
tacKed by a shark, which darted and
tore his trousers as a terrier might.
It is perhaps unfortunate that sharks
are not more given to attack human
beings. Were it so there would be few
er tragedies. 1t is the immunity that
man enjoys from shark attack that
makes him venturesome and leads one
of his number every now and then to
meet with death or mutilation.-Lon-
don Globe.