PERILS OF THE SURF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18018, 17 February 1922, Page 5

PERILS OF THE SURF.

RISKS THAT BATHERS TAKE.

JEOPARDISING OTHER LINES,

HEROIO RESCUES FROM SHARKS, The tragedy at Coogee and the gallant efforts of Chalmers and Beaurepairo to rescue a bather from a shark has led Mi. A. Weston relate some incidents from his own experience of tragedies and rescues from sharks and crocodiles. Writ- | ing iu the Sydney Daily Telegraph, lie j says tliat bathers who swim out beyond j the breakers at Bondi. Coogee, and Manly ! are either ignorant or foolishly ruckles* |of the fact that they are deliberately swimming at the risk of thoir lives, the risk of a mean and sudden death, and that the valuable lives of brave, unselfish wen are risked or lost in heroic attempts to savo them. And people must not suppose they are safe merely because they aro inside the breakers. At scores of places on the coast of Queensland, I have soeu 10ft. and 12ft. sharks come right into 3ft. of water inside the inner break, with the dorsal bns, half of the tail, and even part of the back showing, and shot them often with the rifle. After relating a number of incidents in which men were attacked by crocodiles, Uie writer describes several rescues fre m sharks. A hoy bathing at TownsviJle had his arm cut clean off by a shark, and his mates rushed bravely in and dragged luni away into shallow water. lie is still j living in TownsviUe. When young Victor Drury was seized in the Brisbane River by a sluirk which was cutting him to pieces, his schoolmates fearlessly swam in and dragged him away from tho shark, but too late to save his life. When young Hewison had his arm cut | off by a> shirk at Newcastle, his brother I swam to the rescue, and practically took j him away from the shark. I At Eraser Island an aboriginal had his ! leg cut off by a> shark, and another black j swam in and stabbed the shark with a i spear. The wounded black lived for years afterwards. Bathers should remember, he adds, that I their odour is carried out by the receding tide to the prowling sharks, which are very afraid and suspicious of anything new and strange; but once those sharks discover the source of the odour to he something good to eat, and mostly harmless, we shall have man-eating sharks like man-eating lions and tigers. Bathing out side the surf at our bathing-places should he absolutely prohibited, if only in the interest of those brave unselfish young fellows who are willing daily ( to risk their valuable lives in the cause of others who appear to attach little value to their own.