Searchers Fail To Find Body

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31316, 11 March 1967, Page 1

Searchers Fail To Find Body

(New Zealand Press Association)

DUNEDIN, March 10.

Searchers in boats and men on the shore failed today to find any trace of the body of William Richard Black, aged 21, who was killed by a shark on Thursday evening at St. Kilda Beach, Dunedin.

The shark attacked as Mr Black and two other members of the St. Kilda Surf Lifesaving Club were taking part in a belt trial about 100 yards from the shore. The R.N.Z.N.V.R. defence launch Toroa, two power boats, surf canoes and beach patrols searched all day yesterday for the body. No sharks have been seen since the incident.

One of New Zealand’s foremost authorities on sharks, Associate Professor J. A. F. Garrick, of the Victoria University zoology department in Wellington, said today he was extremely surprised that there had been three shark fatalities on New Zealand beaches in three years. These figures were still too small to conclude that attacks by sharks were increasing dramatically, but If the figures were not significant then they were “most coincidental.” The shark attacks in the relatively cold waters of New ' Zealand were a puzzling phe- i nomenon, he said. Most attacks throughout the ; rest of the world occurred in 1 warm waters—7o degrees and 1 over—but the water temperature at St. Kilda on Thursday 1 night was only about 56 de- < grees. 1 He warned against swim- >

ming at night or in sea water clouded with sediment. A warning about drawing conclusions about shark attacks were given today by the director of the Otago Museum, Dr. R. R. Forster.

Not enough really author!, tative evidence existed for conclusions to be drawn about the types of sharks making the attacks, or ths conditions which favoured these attacks, he said.