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False Bay Shark Alert: Heed the Siren!

With the news that a swimmer in False Bay narrowly escaped becoming a great white shark’s lunch yesterday, SA Blog reminds all False Bay beachgoers: heed the shark siren!

The mountains above both Muizenberg and Fish Hoek beaches (click here for peninusla map) have “shark spotters” – men and women with binoculars, scanning the waters for the deadly carcharodonian shape. If they see a shark anywhere near ocean recreation areas, they radio for the siren to sound – and hordes of surfers, bathers, swimmers, etc., stream for the beach.

The shark spotters are already used to the sight of three great whites in particular, which range between two and five meters in length, regularly skirt the edge of human activity – patrolling just beyond the breakers – and are named Dopey, Dozy and Speedy. How fang-toothedly cute.

Yesterday’s lucky swimmer apparently heard the siren, but mistook it for a train whistle. Don’t swim like him!