The Albino Beast Who Rules Deep

[mrmoshe]

The albino beast who rules deep

PERHAPS this is the English shark that had our northern cousins in a cold sweat last week - after all, it's white, bloated and sports a set of decidedly dodgy teeth.

This rare albino grey nurse has been spotted at Australia's best known diving and fishing spot Fish Rock in NSW.

The photo of the 2.2m male was taken by Fish Rock Dive Centre owner Jon Cragg 2km off South West Rocks.

Mr Cragg was speechless when the amazing creature swam past him.

"I saw the big white shadow in the water with two other sharks then when I saw it I couldn't believe it, it was like a ghost coming out of the darkness," Mr Cragg said.

"No one has ever seen one like this before - it was pretty exciting."

Despite albinos having a lower chance of survival because they are visible to prey, Mr Cragg said this shark was "fighting fit".

"It looks like an active male and it was hanging out with the other sharks quite peacefully," he said.

The albino shark discovery comes a week after claims a "great white shark" was photographed off the English seaside last week.

Despite hysterical headlines in UK papers, experts said the creature was most likely a harmless basking shark.

Larry Anderson, who was diving with Mr Cragg, said the albino was a little more cautious than the others.

"I guess to survive standing out the way it did it needed a bit more survival instinct in him," Mr Anderson said.

"Nothing I've seen in my many years of diving could compare to the sight of this beautiful animal as it slowly cruised by."

Marine expert Julian Pepperell said it was the first albino shark he had heard of: "Where has it been?"

The sighting comes as South West Rocks residents wait to hear if Fish Rock will become a "no-fishing" zone.

The Nature Conservation Council (NCC) is pushing for more exclusion zones in NSW such as Fish Rock on the grounds the grey nurse shark species is nearly extinct, with fewer than 500 on the east coast. However, there is anecdotal evidence to suggest up to 6000 grey nurses are out there.

The NCC has taken their campaign to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in a bid to force the Government to set up sanctuaries.

If they are successful, Fish Rock will go from being a habitat zone where some fishing is allowed to a sanctuary zone with a 1.5km radius of protection. A decision is expected this month.

[nightstalker]

I think that proves that the divers and fisheries simply have no idea of how many grey nurse sharks there are out there.

It is their so called research which drives the public debate and then the decisions.

With the amount of diving that takes place in known GNS haunts it really says something that this is the first time that an adult male albino has been spotted. This shark is old yet has never been seen before, hello...

Therefore there must be other aggregations of GNS and the numbers they use to shut us out of spots are just a joke.

[mrmoshe]

Re the above story....It's a bit fishy.

a "great white shark" was photographed off the English seaside last week.

From The UK Guardian:

'I can't believe the story went so big. I didn't even get any money out of it'

· Newquay hoax made headlines round the world

· Circulation wars blamed for outbreak of Jaws mania

Steven Morris

Thursday August 9, 2007

The Guardian

A grey-white snout with the threat of awful teeth juts clear of the water and the wake the beast's body creates implies speed and strength. The experts may have poured scorn on the wobbly video clips of dark fins breaking the waves but when the Sun published the photograph last week even the most macho of surfers may have thought twice before dipping a toe into the Atlantic.

Other recent sightings were probably of basking sharks or of smaller, harmless species, but it seemed certain that this was a great white shark, haunting the waters off Cornwall.

Article continues

Yesterday, however, the great white "sighting" was exposed as a fake - a great white lie, so to speak. The shark was, indeed, a great white, but it was snapped during a fishing expedition off South Africa, 6,000 miles away rather than close to the British surfing mecca of Newquay, north Cornwall, as had been claimed.

Kevin Keeble, a nightclub bouncer, admitted: "I took the picture while I was on a fishing trip in Cape Town and just sent it in as a joke. I didn't expect anyone to be daft enough to take it seriously.

"I can't believe the story went so big in the first place. I didn't even get any money out of it. If I'd have made a few quid, then maybe I could have gone on another fishing trip to South Africa."

His tale had been a little more dramatic. He had told how he had been reeling in mackerel on a fishing trip off Newquay. "I picked up my camera and caught a picture with my telephoto lens. The shark was about 100ft away. It was only there for a few seconds before it disappeared. I've been fishing off Newquay for 25 years and I've never seen anything like it. I've seen porbeagles, basking sharks, bull sharks - but this was something else."

Depending on who you speak to, the hoax was a little bit of fun, just plain annoying, or something that could do real harm to the Cornish economy.

Lorraine Harrison, chairman of Newquay chamber of commerce, said: "The bad weather has been enough to contend with, without people spreading this kind of malicious stuff. There are people out there who are gullible enough to be taken in by this. The people who did this should know better and need to give a bit more thought to the town they live in."

But most Newquay townsfolk seem to have thought the story was nonsense from the start. For one thing, the water looks mirror-like and it is usually choppy off north Cornwall. Nor did the angle look right if the shark had really been 100ft (30 metres) away.

A Newquay lifeguard, Paul Benney, said he had smiled because he had known Mr Keeble had just returned from South Africa. "He also has really bad eyesight so I laughed when I read he saw it from 100ft away. We have had a few kids a bit scared about sharks here but we told them not to worry. You are in far greater danger of being hurt by a weaver fish than a shark, he said."

Still, the Sun's shark mania made headlines around the world. The ABC network in Australia reported the sightings, the Gulf Times joined in the fun, and even Practical Fishkeeping, the British magazine for fans of the aquarium, carried it.

The Cornwall Tourist Board yesterday said it believed the "great, great white wheeze" had brought the area good publicity. There was no evidence that people had stayed away.

In the end, and it really is no great surprise, the great white shark scare was all about newspaper circulation. The Sun yesterday refused to comment. But a well-placed source said the shark editions had sold "like hot cakes". And, it turns out, it is not just the national tabloids that are at each others' throats. Mr Keeble handed his photograph to one of his local newspapers, the Newquay Guardian (circulation 7,000) from where it reached the delighted picture desk of the Sun (circulation 3.6m).

It was the Newquay Guardian's fierce rival, the Newquay Voice (circulation 4,500), that got the interview with Mr Keeble to knock down the story.

The Newquay Guardian yesterday insisted it had carried the story "in good faith" but the paper's head of content, Matt Dixon, admitted there were "one or two loopholes" in it. "You do it with a bit of a smile on your face," he added.