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Shark attacks send shivers through Aussie holidaymakers

SYDNEY (AFP) - - A spate of savage shark attacks in Australia has sent a shiver through summer holidaymakers bombarded with graphic details and claims that the razor-toothed predators are increasingly targeting humans.
Three attacks on swimmers within 24 hours over Sunday and Monday -- just two weeks after a snorkeller was killed -- have fuelled a fevered debate over whether overfishing has put man on the menu.
"Humans are next in line on the food chain," veteran shark hunter Vic Hislop told commercial radio. "It will definitely get worse."
Experts say there is no scientific evidence to support his claim that reducing the shark's natural prey through overfishing has produced a spike in attacks.
But a steady stream of shock reports has won splash headlines and set radio talkback shows buzzing during the annual school holidays:
-- Fifty-one-year-old banker Brian Guest disappeared in a turmoil of fins and blood while snorkelling with his son south of Perth on the west coast on December 27. His body has not been found.
-- Two surfers were rushed to hospital after separate attacks, one on the east coast north of Sydney and one in Tasmania, on Sunday.
-- A snorkeller's leg was ripped in a mid-morning attack south of Sydney by what is believed to be a bull shark, on Monday.
-- Punctuating the attacks have been several scares, including a kayaker being knocked into the water by a great white shark off a popular Sydney beach.
The encounters have been reported in breathless detail under headlines such as Monday's "Escape from the jaws of a killer" in the Daily Telegraph, accompanied by pictures of victims and a surfboard with a monstrous bite taken out of it.
The surfboard was carrying 13-year-old Hannah Mighall at Binalong Bay on the southern island of Tasmania on Sunday when she was attacked by a great white shark estimated to be five metres (16-feet) long.
"She was slapping it and screaming, 'Get it off me, get it off me'," her cousin Syb Mundy told national radio.
"Then she was just yelling out that her leg was hurting and next thing you know all the water was just blood, pretty much couldn't see anything."
Mundy, 33, has been hailed as a hero after paddling over to his younger cousin and hauling her onto his own board before catching a wave into the beach as the shark circled them.
Mighall was having plastic surgery on her leg in the Royal Hobart Hospital, where a spokeswoman said she was in a stable condition.
Three attacks in 24 hours might be unusual, but John West, curator of the official Australian shark Attack File held at Sydney's Taronga Zoo, dismisses claims that the number of attacks on humans is increasing.
"The human population is increasing and more and more people are going into the water, but there has not been a corresponding spike in fatalities from shark attacks," he told AFP.
"There is still an average of 1.2 fatalities a year over about the past 50 years -- if anything the fatality rate for shark attacks is dropping in comparison to the increase in the human population.
"Humans are not part of the shark's diet, otherwise there would be nobody safe in the water."
A total of 194 deaths through shark attacks have been recorded in Australia over the past two centuries, leading researchers to point out endlessly that more people die from bee stings and lightning strikes.
But there is something about being eaten that resonates with swimmers.
"It was basically a scene out of 'Jaws'," said surfer Ian Hollingsworth who witnessed the attack on Mighall, referring to Steven Spielberg's 1975 film.
"The shark went around and I saw it actually come out of the water and hit her... I saw her going backwards, and she was screaming."

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http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20090112/tap-australia-animal-shark-5a1703c.html
The above is The original link from yahoo... i did noT make iT up in case u Think i have Too much Time. haha