Panic attack
17/11/2004 08:26 - (SA)


The hysteria around shark attacks never ceases to amaze me. They hardly happen in South Africa, and when they do we have to endure countless extreme over-reactions.

Inevitably, in Cape Town, there'll be debates about whether we should put up shark nets or not, and make the choice to blithely overlook the fact that they kill all kinds of other sea creatures. Including those cute dolphins.

There'll be sensationalist reports about rogue killer sharks, that have developed an inexplicable taste for human flesh and humming the theme tune from Jaws.

Tuesday's headline in Die Burger, in large, bright, hysterical red, was MANVRETER! No, it's not a story about Free State Premier Beatrice Marshoff, although it does share with that story the attribute of being given way more column space then the actual details deserve.

I'm telling you, the last time they used a headline that size, it was SPRINGBOKS LOSE TO JAPAN!, or something like that. Clearly they save it for horror stories. (OK, I made that up. But you KNOW it could be true.)

Another example of sensationalism is the comment by a fellow columnist that "it is truly worrying that a country that has produced some of the world's top [surfing] contenders... is under siege."

Excuse me? Under SIEGE? What, you mean like Fallujah? The Americans are sending sophisticated smartsharks in to munch South African surfers, so that Kelly Slater can make more money on the surfing circuit? It's ridiculous.

My attitude to sharks was formed by my father. I was diving with him once, off Robben Island, and a shark swam underneath us. I froze. My father reached out and patted the shark on the head. It convulsed and swam away.

I asked him why he'd done it. It was a dogshark, he said.

I'm not suggesting that we adopt quite that extreme a familiarity with sharks - some would say contempt, and others stupidity - but I do think it's time we stopped all this nonsense about treating them with respect.

As far as I'm concerned, people who go on about how sharks are noble creatures, whose territory we enter under sufferance, are as bad as the people calling for shark nets to be put up.

It's just a fish! Take all the precautions you can, sure, but if you're going to skateboard next to a Rottweiler's kennel, expect to get bitten now and then. There's nothing mystical about it.

I must admit, though, all this brave talk might be proved an illusion on Saturday, when I go for a surf. You can't help feeling a bit of fear when you get into the water after a recent shark attack, although logically your chances of getting attacked are the same as they were before the attack happened. Right?

That kind of irrational fear can be expected, and it would take a braver person than me not to feel it. But please, stop already with the horror stories! And also, stop with all the stats!

We've all laughed at the hoary old stat that most shark attacks occur in shallow water (and most car accidents occur in cars, right?), but do we have to be subjected to the even more ridiculous anecdotal ones?

You know the ones I mean - the fishermen who say, Aaar, matey, there be many more of them there Great Whites this year than last. The surfskiers who claim to have been eyeballed by many more sharks since chumming started in False Bay. The WP supporters who want Sharks nets put up at the entrance to Newlands. (OK, I made that one up as well.)

The problem with all this, of course, is that, as rare as shark attacks are, they're terrible, terrible things. We're right to feel fear, and to feel absolute sympathy for the victims. But why, oh why, do we have to create these hysterical myths to deal with our fear.