i see the Piranha post and thought instantly about the bad rep some fish have got from films this one a lot more than most. the great white shark.


is it really a nasty fish that should be killed and hunted. i don't think so, its where it belongs in the sea, at home. if we go pester it its our thought not the fish.

I totally agree Marcus. Films have got a lot to anwser for when it comes to giving a bad reputation to animals in the natural world.

Jaws may be a very entertaining film to a lot of people, however it caused absolute panic when it first came out in 1974. Sharks immediately got a reputation for being absolute killers which was totally unjustified. Nobody is saying that a great white wouldn't eat someone given half a chance, but actively hunting individual people down is just complete nonsense. And killer Fish (I think that is what it was called), that gave piranha fish a very bad reputation. And can you remember the film where the piranha fish actually grew wings and started flying? Very bloody, bloody awful if you ask me

Jaws the film put the shits up me )))) No way I was going swimming in the sea as a kid. Later on in life I have been diving hoping to swim with sharks and paid a fair amount for the chance. never really got to see anything worth a mention but I do love the sea and all that live in it. i did get attacked and bitten..... By a clown fish just like nemo. bloody thing got my belly and wouldn't back down all 4" of it drove me away

the great white still gets a bad time with nets doing a lot of damage just to keep them off the beach so people can swim. your from the coast, did jaws keep you out the water or your mates? )

I believe people have this desire to be scared. They develop overactive imaginations and create there own fears...The killer Piranha the Great white who locks onto one man. Or the infamous Moby Dick...Human nature as always through out the ages.

its not only fish that get a bad rap from movies. mostly all large predators at one time or another hit the film industry with killing rampages against people. what comes to mind are movies like grizzly, jaws, pirahna ect...

to my knowledge there is only one predator that will actively hunt a person and that is a polar bear. but looking at the lack of food sources in the artic it does stand to reason.

its funny how the great white gets a bad rep for eating surfers like they honestly can tell the difference when looking up hell we even had a prob telling the diff, i mean can animals reason well that is bigger than most of my others or hey he is walking on two feet. just goes to show that really how bad people can twist stories for ratings or just to make a buzz.

I can't remember the exact figure, but quite a lot of people go missing on Australian beaches every year and their bodies are never found, however there are only a handful of reported shark attacks every year, makes you think doesn't it?

OFL wrote:


Aliens Penn surfers go out knowing there are sharks in the water low and behold they get eaten now if I knew it was shark season at my local beach would I go act like a seal

I am not sure on numbers of attack if any but james bond gave the hammerhead bad rep. I have known divers to swim with up to 200 hammerheads so was he a hero to dive into the swimming pool to kill it. Film makers have done some real damage to the environment and true necro its not just the fish world. but people are scared of the sea already and if they go on killing whites like they do maybe the surfers will have a safe place to swim. i like nature programs that portray the animal as it really is and I hate the far fetched film with big bangs(one man army film).

There is a cove along our shoreline that is well known as a haven for local surfers. It's also the home to Brutus - a 17ft Great White that has been known to snag himself a surfer every now and then. He never does any major damage because it seems as soon as he figures out he didn't score a seal - he lets go.

It's too bad that people are afraid of the unknown. If they'd take a bit of time to educate themselves they might not be so freaked out by something that really has no interest in people.

marcus wrote:


I think great whites are a protected species in most countries now.

the Alligator Gar has a bad rep in the southern US, and it is easy to see why



but as my brother in law proves, they aren't so bad once they have gone stiff



(we found it this way)

OFL wrote:


Yeah we should stop drinking and swimming in the ocean. damn us aussies. lol