After Ben Gerring was attacked, a 4.2 meter great white was caught and killed.
Last night, the surfer who lost his leg in a horrific shark attack a few days ago died from his injuries. Ben Gerring was surfing at Falcon Beach in Western Australia when a great white attacked him from behind and bit off his leg. He leaves behind a wife, who is pregnant.
Gerring was a 29-year-old heavy equipment operator who grew up surfing in the area. At the time of his attack, about 20 other surfers were in the water, including his good friend Brian Williams. “He was right out the back looking to get a big wave, one of the set waves that had been coming through during the day,” Williams remembered. “He’d sort of paddled out the back, sort of past the pack slightly. And next thing all hell broke loose and they were trying to bring him in.”
After the attack, Gerring was rushed to a hospital in Perth. Soon after, baited drum lines were put out in hopes of catching the shark that bit him. Within a day, a 4.2 meter great white was caught, killed, and dragged out to sea. Although WA’s drum lines were the center of a debate for a long time, they were eventually removed after it was revealed that they weren’t actually catching great whites, as they were intended to do. “The policy did not prove effective in catching great whites and the great white shark was principally the problem,” Premier Colin Barnett said on Thursday. The Department of Fisheries isn’t sure whether the shark caught was actually the one that attacked Gerring, but Barnett is reasonably sure it was. “It is highly probable,” he said. “It was a four-meter shark found in the exact same location the following day, within 24 hours so I think it is highly likely it was the shark.”
VIDEO: #Shark caught on drum line near where surfer Ben Gerring was attacked in #Mandurah https://t.co/KQs8TyV2Qz pic.twitter.com/M5s9DS0bKW
— ABC News Perth (@abcnewsPerth) June 1, 2016
As always, the topic of what to do about sharks in the area has created a rift in the community. Shane Hartnup, a friend of Gerring’s for two decades, thinks something drastic needs to be done. “I think the sharks have gotten out of hand,” he told Perth Now. “All these people they’re worried about killing sharks, but to clear land and build a house you’re killing a kangaroo, you’re killing a chicken and cow to eat dinner, your fish and chips are shark. They don’t focus on the real thing — someone has died and his wife is pregnant.”
And he’s got a point, if the shark caught is the one that killed Gerring. Unfortunately, there’s no real way of knowing. Many of the world’s leading shark experts, in fact, argue that killing a shark is merely a way to make people feel as though something meaningful is being done. “The catch and kill policy is not a shark bite prevention policy — it is political theatre,” said Christopher Neff, who lectures at the University of Sydney. “It’s a shame because it basically takes a terrible situation that happened to people, like this gentleman, and makes it worse by suggesting the solution to the problem is to kill an individual shark. That’s not the solution to the problem.”
Neff has been working with sharks for a long time. When it comes to baited drumlines, he says they actually make the problem worse. Of course, bait draws in sharks, and although it might kill one of them, there are more in the area. Neff says that the single best shark attack reduction method is tagging. “It is actual risk reduction, actual public education that the public should use,” he explained. “That technology is a significant advancement that is being used in Cape Town and being picked up around the world.”
He went on to echo the sentiment of many: that the ocean isn’t our domain. “We’re land animals,” he said. “When we go in the water, everybody knows about it. The whole ecosystem responds. “We need to recognize the ocean is this wild, dynamic ecosystem and when we enter into it, we’ve got to have a healthy respect for that environment.”
Whatever the solution is, Gerring’s death is a tragedy. Condolences to his family, friends, and everyone that knew him.
A crowdfunding campaign has been set up to help Gerring’s fiancée. Donate HERE.
