Trapped Sharks Escort Bathers In Sydney Pool

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27568, 9 December 1950, Page 9

Trapped Sharks Escort Bathers In Sydney Pool

NZPA—Copyright Rec. 10 p.m. SYDNEY, Dec. 8. Five hundred people bathed in the Manly pool yesterday unaware that the pool also contained a six-foot blue pointer or grey nurse shark. The discovery was made last night by a spear fisherman, Leslie Doe, who found the shark accompanying him when he made for the surface from a depth of 15 feet. The shark did not attack and a search failed to find it. ' Doe told the police that the shark was badly cut about the nose and the front of its head as if it had been trying to regain the sea through the steel meshing. Manly pool is really a section of the Sydney Harbour with a sandy beach and bottom and is cut off from the rest of the harbour by several hundred yards of shark-proof fence. Officials believe the shark has been trapped inside the fence since the fence was overhauled a month ago. Later today one of three spear fishermen hunting the shark yms attacked by it. He was at a depth of 10 feet when the shark came at him from above. As the shark went past he jabbed at it with his knife inflicting a long wound in the gills, from which blood poured. The shark did not return to the attack. The pool also contains another shark which is of a species known to be harmless. A commercial diver will attempt to drive the sharks to the surface with electrically-detonated charges, and in the meantime police are maintaining a constant patrol at the pool in case any poorly-informed swimmer should dive in'