http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44703849/ns/world_news-africa/#.ToVd0M04xaR

It sounds to me like you're somehow trying to put the blame on the authorities for this. It sounds to me like they acted just like they should have. Nobody was "crying wolf". There was literally a shark swimming in the waters, they saw it, and took measures.

Just another nominee for the Darwin Awards..   

The article I read about it said:

"One of the first on the scene was shark spotter Monwabisi Sikweyiya, who has told how he helped drag the victim from the water. He said Mr Cohen had lived in the area for years and was known as a regular swimmer at the beach. "He was very interested in sharks and respected them, but never took any notice of our warnings," he told The Daily Telegraph. "If he wanted to swim, he swam. We warned him often that he was taking a risk, but he always said 'if a shark takes me, then blame me, not the shark'."

I think the life lesson to take from this is; if you keep ignoring the warning signs, sooner or later something very bad is to going to happen to you. It could also be said that Mr Cohen is a total prat. But at least he lived. The attack I read about prior to this one, the guy got bitten in half. I think that guy was a Brit as well. Needless to say, that was a damn big shark.

I thought he was a Brit, but wasn't absolutely sure. I do remember the article I read about it said that Prince William and his missus had gone to the same place for their honeymoon, like it was in some way bloody relevant to the story.

I have at least one nightmare a month of a Great White (or Great Whites) trying to eat me and eating people around me. Bloody terrifying! But there's no way you'll get me in an ocean or sea now, so at least something good has come of out of them.

I was just a kid when Jaws came out. I remember when they showed it on the television for the first time, my brother wouldn't go to the loo during the commercial break 'cause he thought Jaws was going to come out the loo and try to eat him. Not that I have room to talk. I damn near filled my pants when Richard Dreyfuss pulls the shark tooth out of the sunken ship, and the severed head rolls out.

But on a more serious note. I know in my conscious mind that sharks aren't really as big a danger as Peter Benchley/Steven Spielberg made them out to be. Most of the time, if you get bitten by one, it's either mistaken identity or curiosity. Unfortunately, the only way a shark can test things is biting it, and when you're several thousand pounds and have a bite force of around 3000-4000 pounds, plus a lot of teeth like serrated blades, you're going to do a lot of damage, curiosity or otherwise.

I'm with Billy Connolly, "there are lots of things in the ocean that don't like us." But you've got to respect something that's been on the planet in one form or another for 16 million years. Plus, the ocean is their domain, not ours. The fact we can't move through water like they can should be sufficient proof of that.

There's two places on the planet where 'great whites' are an issue...the southern coast of South Africa....and the Western and southern coasts of Australia.  The rest of you can go to sleep.  Open sea shots in Jaws were filmed here, not in the US, or anywhere else.

In Oz [at least] the species is PROTECTED. If you are STUPID enough to be taken by one at least you have served to prolong a noble/ancient species' existence.

THEY [the sharks] were here first.  YOU are merely tourists with a finite existence.

Deal with it or find a desert somewher....

well.... we need to keep a close eye on shark numbers now.... dwindling... and they keep the ocean food chain healthy... picking off the sick and old fish and keeping a balance....stopping disease spreading...

Great Whites are now endangered....... as are Grey Nurses.... and no doubt many others, through fishing nets... shark's fin soup and Jaws inspired hysterical hunting... the Great White's teeth and jaws sought for trading and meat for pills..

was reading an article awhile back about an area of coastline that is now menaced by an octopus...think it was the red octopus, that attacks and bites in numbers.... no sharks left in the area to keep the numbers down now, so not safe to swim there anymore.... wish I could remember what coastline it was, can't seem to find the article now... 

the footage of fishing for shark fins for soup is atrocious... cut their fins off and throw 'em back live to bleed to death...

we're gonna pay a high price for messing with the natural order of things in the oceans as well as on land....

and here's another one destined for the Darwin Awards....  link    poor bloody copper... 

Usually that's just American tourists....perhaps the croc was thinking of slumming it...

Let's not be racist/segregational...I'm certain ALL politicians taste the same...

Yep. A winner in the "Shark Bisquit Steaks" (deliberate).

You do seem to have the cutest, friendliest critters there. A certain spider 'jumps' to mind.

Indeed. Not born, as it were. "Excreted" seems to fit better (bitter?).

The bite might be painless, but this octopus injects a neuromuscular paralysing venom. The venom contains some maculotoxin, a poison more violent than any found on land animals. The nerve conduction is blocked and neuromuscular paralysis is followed by death. The victim might be saved if artificial respiration starts before marked cyanosis and hypotension develops. The blue-ringed octopus is the size of a golf ball but its poison is powerful enough to kill an adult human in minutes. There's no known antidote. The only treatment is hours of heart massage and artificial respiration until the poison has worked its way out of your system.

The venom contains tetrodotoxin, which blocks sodium channels and causes motor paralysis and occasionally respiratory failure. Though with fixed dilated pupils, the senses of the patients are often intact. The victims are aware but unable to respond.

Although the painless bite can kill an adult, injuries have only occurred when an octopus has been picked out of its pool and provoked or stepped on.

SYMPTOMS

Onset of nausea.
Hazy Vision. ( Within seconds you are blind.)
Loss of sense of touch, speech and the ability to swallow.
Within 3 minutes, paralysis sets in and your body goes into respiratory arrest.
The poison is not injected but is contained in the octopus's saliva, which comes from two glands each as big as its brain. Poison from the one is used on its main prey, crabs, and is relatively harmless to humans. Poison from the other gland serves as defense against predators. The blue-ringed octopus either secretes the poison in the vicinity of its prey, waits until it is immobile and then devours it, or it jumps out and envelops the prey in its 8 tentacles and bites it.

Of course...that just sounds like a good night at the pub....