Shark! Croc! Chimp!

Journos are sensitive souls. They can sense the slightest shift in the public mood. Their livelihood depends on it. Some time early this week, their radar stopped lighting up with punters checking for hourly updates to the Victorian bushfire death toll. And after Black Saturday… well, sorry you folks up in Queensland, but floods don’t quite cut it.

Elemental disaster makes fine copy, but nothing good lasts forever, and devoid of bona fide local catastrophe, it was back to the drawing board. Thank the lawd for the tried and true. Time to haul out that old faithful – rrraaaaarrrrggghhh! – sharks! And what a sharky old week it was.

Perth’s Sunday Times online presence, perthnow.com.au, led off on Tuesday with the headline “Surgery for shark victim Nari”. Turns out Nari is a dolphin. Oh well, in the absence of any current maulings of us mob you gotta settle for what you can get.

News.com.au, not to be outgunned by a rag like The Sunday Times, countered the same day with the screamer “IT’S OVER, CANNIBAL KIDS – Killer shark siblings to breed outside mum”. Turns out the only killin’ these sharklets had been up to was of baby bro and sis. Oh well, better raid the pics library for some scary shots of mum. Voila:

grey nurse shark

Steerewth! Looga dem fangs! The grey nurse boasts a fearsome dental display awright. You gotta be grateful they’re on the edge of extinction. Those deep sea divers have done a fine job ridding the planet of this menace. See, grey nurses scavenge on the bottom fathoms down, right there where deep sea divers hang out. Fortunately, they’re real sluggish by day – easy to pick off. The risk to the diver is minimal, cos they’re not an aggressive shark. Only attack when harassed, apparently. But how do we know how their behaviour mightn’t change if they took to cruising urban swimming beaches in shallow water? Dunno why they’d leave their natural habitat to do that, but they might. A shark’s a shark’s a killer.

Which, come to think about it, could just explain why news.com.au added a photo gallery unrelated to the grey nurse story, featuring “terrifying sharks”. AND included some advice on “how to avoid an attack”. Now there’s an article to print out and leave on your beach towel for ready reference before you take your chances in that briney monster lair. You thrill seeker, you.

In the absence of any fresh reports of sharks munching on homosapiens, there was nothing for it mid-week but to switch monsters. Croc – your time, baby! Good ol’ Perthnow.
“Boy’s remains found in croc” screamed their headline.
Complete with family album pics of the poor child. Pathos. Ya gotta have pathos.

Then, on Thursday, a godsend: a chimp attack! And not just any old attack:
“Chimp rips woman’s face off”
Now there’s a headline.

Come Saturday, and just as the curtain was falling on a monster-filled week, a scoop – another SHARK story, no less! This is, perhaps, the piece de resistance.

Here’s the story headline and intro from thewest.com.au


Rotto swim shark 2


Coxy, you beeyootay! The odds this bloke conquered to win this year’s Rotto swim! Wot a champ!

Perthnow.com pooped the party with their headline, though:

“Rottnest swim winner saw small shark”

Oh – small shark. How small? 60cm, as it turns out. But it WAS a white pointer. Erm, wasn’t it?

Thangs just ain’t been the same since Cuz straightened out.

One thought on “Shark! Croc! Chimp!”

  1. Here’s a thawt: if we could get Cuz into the briney deep and he says he saw a shark, hey bingo presto! Greatest news headline of the year would be born!

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