SHARKS AND SURFERS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 42, 18 August 1925, Page 9

SHARKS AND SURFERS

With the gradual coming, of summer all sort* of device* are once again being suggested to protect from- sharks surfers on Sydney* beaches. The Randwick Council, in whose domain HesCoor gee, one of Sydney's most popular resorts, has been offered the free use for a year of an anti-shark device. But the sting in the offer is' that the inventor should be paid £20,000 for the device if it proves efficient. It has been suggested, somewhat ungenerously, that the most convincing test would be for the inventor to arm himself with his device and pit himself against a hungry shark —and the sharks that infest Sydney's beaches are hungry, judging from the toll they take of life each summer. A few years ago someone "claimed that ho had solved the problem of sharks by an electric loud sounder, which, produced in the water a recurring vibration unpleasant to sharks. But the idea that sharks could be swept from the beaches merely by distasteful noises did not appeal to the authorities. On some" "of Sydney's beaches now are lofty watch towers, in which a paid attendant scans the horizon during the bathing hour* and ring* a bell of warning if he «cc* a shark. But th« sharks etui come into comparatively shallow water, and leave tragedy in their wake.