Australia approves dumping in Great Barrier reef

[boatman61]

Nearest I got to Aussie sea water was spray in a blow.. no way was I going in.. even when kelp fouled my prop off the Tasi coast..
And toilets were examined very carefully as well..

[RigelKent]

Still have to question the baited drum line method. Basically this hangs a wall of bait meat around populous beaches and does nothing to repel sharks unless they happen to be hooked by the *intended* bait. So far they have been hooking undersized tiger sharks that were not meant to be killed. Alternatively, netting would chance the capture and entanglement of the plentiful dolphins and turtles.

6000 turned out to protest the cull, or whatever it's called. Creative solutions to protect swimmers and surfers needed.

[downunder]

We run into quite a lot of Hammerheads and Tigers diving in the GBR and Coral Sea reefs well as plenty/many of the smaller species no worries.

Great whites are just a different ball game and potentially very fatal unless in a cage. Scary.

[Barra]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Nearest I got to Aussie sea water was spray in a blow.. no way was I going in.. even when kelp fouled my prop off the Tasi coast..
And toilets were examined very carefully as well..

LOL

I hear ya there. Just love the mediterranean sea - swim anywhere dont have to worry about being eaten even 200 miles offshore!

(maybe that's what beneteau 50 sitting in Rome feels he can tell us why we shouldnt "cull" sharks- safe as there)

[Barra]

Originally Posted by RigelKent

Still have to question the baited drum line method. Basically this hangs a wall of bait meat around populous beaches and does nothing to repel sharks unless they happen to be hooked by the *intended* bait. So far they have been hooking undersized tiger sharks that were not meant to be killed. Alternatively, netting would chance the capture and entanglement of the plentiful dolphins and turtles.

6000 turned out to protest the cull, or whatever it's called. Creative solutions to protect swimmers and surfers needed.

Agree its probably not the only answer and we shouldnt stop there (and im sure we wont) - more research needed. my beef is just with the whole live somewhere else in the world crowd telling us what to do. No skin off there nose. Or the "its their ocean" crowd who dont use the water. cheap seats....

[Oceanride007]

Few sharks in WA is still small stuff, more important is the big stuff that people no longer have a convenient emotional handle that motivates action.

Big ones I can think of:
That the economy is more important than the environment.
Don't get in the way of a politician focused on re-election.
We no longer encourage our best and brightest into the sciences as there is no money in it.
We still don't know the important symbiotic relationships.
We still haven't named more than 1/2 the critters that we share the world with.

I heard David Suzuki on TV last night, it appears the great victories that he was a part of, well those battles are being fought again, think the good intentioned people are exhausted. Its all too hard.

[Barra]

Originally Posted by Oceanride007

Few sharks in WA is still small stuff, more important is the big stuff that people no longer have a convenient emotional handle that motivates action.

Big ones I can think of:
That the economy is more important than the environment.
Don't get in the way of a politician focused on re-election.
We no longer encourage our best and brightest into the sciences as there is no money in it.
We still don't know the important symbiotic relationships.
We still haven't named more than 1/2 the critters that we share the world with.

I heard David Suzuki on TV last night, it appears the great victories that he was a part of, well those battles are being fought again, think the good intentioned people are exhausted. Its all too hard.

Maybe the masses have lost the "emotional handle" as you say due to constant media sensationalism of the environmental issue ie if you say the worlds gonna end in 50 years every 5 minutes people just switch off. If you say the GBR is being "top filled" by sediment at abbot point when it isnt people ignore your next headline etc etc

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by downunder

We run into quite a lot of Hammerheads and Tigers diving in the GBR and Coral Sea reefs well as plenty/many of the smaller species no worries.

Great whites are just a different ball game and potentially very fatal unless in a cage. Scary.

Remember a dive on the yongala coming face to face with one of the biggest Tigers I've ever dove with.
Visibility was not good and that was a pucker moment.
Avoid diving with pointers but love diving with the rest

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[downunder]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

Remember a dive on the yongala coming face to face with one of the biggest Tigers I've ever dove with.
Visibility was not good and that was a pucker moment.
Avoid diving with pointers but love diving with the rest

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

Tigers whilst very capable never rush and all the others give them right of way. Top of the reef shark pecking order.

[jongleur]

Grow grow grow. Build build build.

Too many people going for too few resources.

Go on people, keep having babies. Aw isn't
he cute? Congratulations. 6 grandchildren?
Clap clap clap. That's wonderful.

Makes me sick.

[SimonV]

It was not that long ago we made the saltwater crocodile a protected species, now look at the problems we have rought. Some years later we protected some sharks, the non man eaters like the nurse I have no problems with, but the bulls and GW too big too dangerous and they are getting like the salty..In our faces.

Sent from my GT-N7105T using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[RaymondR]

Trying to remember... Is voting in Australia mandatory ?

Another popular furpy like I was conscripted and sent to war in Vietnam.

Voting is not mandatory but going to a polling place and having your name crossed off the eligible voter list is. Once that is done you can wander off home without having voted with no penalties applying.

One of the very few constitutional rights Australians enjoy is to not be conscripted and sent off to fight in a foreign war and everyone who does is a volunteer.

[RigelKent]

Originally Posted by Barra

..the whole live somewhere else in the world crowd telling us what to do...

It can be like living in a fishbowl with international news focus on the GBR preservation and WA shark baiting. But I take the comments from our forum members differently - I think there are lots of people throughout the world that look for Australia is doing to help them figure out what to do about *their own* environmental and economic issues -- as Australia has built a good reputation in these regards. So when something seemingly out of character happens here people elsewhere are puzzled about it.

Was thinking - there are all of these yahoos in the news these days who want close encounters with great whites whilst protected by nothing but a bird cage. Why not enlist their efforts to deal one-on-one with known man eaters close to shore? We already have regular helicopter patrols over the shoreline to spot the big sharks. Why not drop a thrill seeker armed with an explosive spearhead right on top of a shark that needs to go? If that is too extreme, give him some kevlar protection as well. He'd have great stories to tell in the pub.

[StuM]

> One of the very few constitutional rights Australians enjoy is to not be conscripted and sent off to fight in a foreign war and everyone who does is a volunteer.

Ahem!

Australia and the Vietnam War | Conscription | The Birthday Ballot

Under the National Service Scheme, twenty-year-old men were required to register with the Department of Labour and National Service (DLNS), they were then subject to a ballot which, if their birth date was drawn, meant the possibility of two years of continuous full-time service in the regular army, followed by three years part-time service in the Army Reserve. As part of their duty, national servicemen on full-time duty were liable for ‘special overseas service’ including combat duties in Vietnam
....
Between 1964 and December 1972 when the Whitlam Government suspended the scheme, 804,286 twenty-year-olds registered for national service, 63,735 national servicemen served in the Army and 15,381 served in Vietnam. Between 1966 and 1971 Australian infantry battalions were typically comprised of an even mix of regular soldiers and national servicemen. Some 200 national servicemen lost their lives in Vietnam.

[RaymondR]

Whilst it is true that a considerable number of Australians conscripted for national service and subsequently served in Vietnam none of them were forced to go it was their choice when asked on special parades whether they stayed with the group volunteering to go to Vietnam or returned to civilian life.

The only time Australian non volunteer conscripts were sent overseas to fight was by the Curtin ALP government during the second world war on the flimsy legal grounds that since PNG was an Australian protectorate it could be considered Australian and not overseas.

I have just completed a voyage from Darwin to Maryborough and there is no shortage of wilderness out there and the northern stretch is a terrible menace to navigation with all the reefs strewn about all over the place.

Mining Development is concentrated in a few places along a very long coastline and I tend to the suspicion that farming and the consequent runoff of silt and chemicals combined with the urban rabbles tendency to dam every trickle which might occasionally flush a bit of decayed plant material into the sea, the shortage of which is probably starving the bottom of the food chain out of existence, is probably doing more harm than a relatively short interval of bottom relocation.

I'll start taking more notice of the watermelons when they support research into safe nuclear and start picketing the maternity wards.