Tooth-hunters damage nets

Press, 4 January 1978, Page 14

Tooth-hunters damage nets

PA Dunedin Dunedin people were tak= ing runabouts out to shark nets off St Clair beach — apparently to try to extract teeth from trapped sharks — and were damaging the nets, an official said.

Three dangerous sharks — a 20ft White Pointer and two 9ft Threshers — have been found in the nets recovered all dead.

Mr G. David, who administers the shark protection scheme, said steps would be taken to prosecute people damaging nets.

Warmer weather and higher water temperatures might have increased shark activity, and the many dogs loose at St Clair could well be attracting he said. The fact that three sharks

had been caught in the same net over a few days was cause for grave concern. In the last 13 years, three persons have died, and another two escaped serious injury, after shark attacks off Dunedin beaches.

In February, 1964, a man was killed by a shark off St Clair beach, and in March, 1967, again off St Clair beach, a shark attack took another life.

The next year, in September, a skindiver died after a shark attack at Aramoana, and in December that year a surfer was attacked at St Clair but escaped without injury.

The last incident came in March, 1971, when another surfer was attacked, again off St Clair beach. His leg and a surfboard were bitten by a shark.