Subject: Re: [baidarka] great whites
From: John Gerlach (gerlach1@pacbell.net)
Date: Sat Dec 10 2005 - 11:33:29 EST
I did some research at the Bodega Bay Marine lab over a summer a few years ago and got to room with a couple great white shark researchers. The sharks breed in Tomales Bay and hunt extensively along the coast and offshore islets and islands for marine mammals. The sharks are ambush hunters and one of the methods used to get photos of them is to tow a Boogie Board size raft with a camera pointing at the bottom. The size of the board triggers the attacks. They had some great shots of approaching sharks and then jaws driving upward from near the bottom and then they'd switch to a surface camera so you could see the raft pop up into the air when the shark hit it. Some of the footage filmed at the Farallones made it into TV in a show about the great whites.
I've heard folks say that you really only have to worry about the smaller and less experienced males taking a bite out of you because the big females have learned that humans are not worth the calories required to digest us. I didn't ask the researchers this question but after seeing the ferocity of the attacks on the rafts .....
One day we were using the Lab's sit on tops to surf (more often than not dumping and swimming after the boats) a small point that leads into the cove by the Lab and the Dive Boss ordered us all out of the water as a great white had just hit a sea lion right in front of him while he was diving just off the point. There wasn't much interest in surfing the point after that.
John Gerlach
wolfgang brinck <nativewater@yahoo.com> wrote:
--- Christopher Stewart wrote:
>
> "My biggest concern is the fact that i am located in the red
> triangle and am
> a
> sitting duck when fishing."
>
> Good luck. Where I'll be fishing, I'll be at much greater risk from
> Grady
> Whites than Great Whites.
>
The Farallones which lie some thirty miles west of SF are supposedly
much favored by the great whites. Someone has written a book about
them called Devil's Teeth. In any case, though the water is
supposedly teeming with sharks, the Russians did have a post out
there and people did operate kayaks in the area - the following is an
excerpt from the Ft Ross historical site:
"The Russians also had an artel (a work group of hunters ) for at
least fourteen years on the Farallon Islandsrocky volcanic specks
which lie west of the entrance to San Francisco Bay. Here bird eggs
were gathered, birds were killed for food, and their skins were used
for garments. Sea lions were killed to provide skins and sinews for
the baidarkas, meat and blubber for food, bladders and intestines for
waterproof clothing and oil for lamps. This desolate post was
populated by a Russian overseer, Alutiiq hunters with their wives,
and some Native Californians. The archaeological record also reflects
this ethnic composition, as artifacts recovered on the Farallons
represent elements of Russian, Alaska Native and California Native
cultures."
Wolfgang
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