He may have got a nicer reply if his question wasn't worded as to try and call me out.
14m would buy a ****load of whatever they wanna do with it, i'm a lifesaver so i see a few sharks everynow and then, in my honest opinion the media overplays the whole shark thing, shark nets dont really do anything like someone said most sharks are caught on the inside, i haven't seen a shark caught on the outside, shark nets are around 100-150m long and have about 5m of net that sits a couple of metres off of the bottom, if a beach is 2-3km long not much of it is covered by net, most of the "general public" are unaware of this, anyway the mostly are not there for about a 1/4 or more of the year and normally get rotated between beaches, if i dived in SA or WA i would buy a shark shield as most of the sharks or on the larger side there and i have seen that they actually do work, honestly if any of this scared me i wouldn't do anything in the ocean
Jarryd
White sharks are not known to be territorial in the sense that you're referring to.
It's more of them staying in an area for specific reasons (breeding, feeding) more so than setting up a territory. It's a part of being a migratory fish.
Nets are just a terrible approach to keeping swimmers safe. They don't offer much protection and they cause plenty of damage. A better alternative to creating a barrier is to us a solid mesh net around large areas of beach. You get proper protection, animals don't get caught in it, it provides structure for other marine creatures to live on....only problem is it is ugly and expensive and is sure to have other issues which I do not know about.
I'm sure the deter them on a certain level, but doubtful the do on a level that actually increase swimmer safety.
I think that the fact that the majority of the sharks are entangled on the swimmer side of the nets supports the theory.
Hey suba and everyone else, this is a very interesting article about white sharks, maybe suba is already aware of but these researchers are talking about a few things we have been discussing in this forum.
Will be interesting to read your thoughts after that. 
This explains it simple enough for my understanding.
"John West, Operations Manager Taronga Zoo: “At the moment, we've got about 47 recorded cases of which about 24 were fatal, and so they've been identified as White Sharks or strongly suspected of being White Sharks.”
NARRATION: The trends shown by John's records can give us a hint of what's happening to shark numbers. With Australia's coast loving population on the rise, you'd also expect the number of white shark attacks to be increasing, that is unless there's fewer sharks around.
John West: “There're more people going into the water, swimming, scuba diving, surfing, you know that whole spectrum of water activities. But there has not been, in the last 30-40 years an increase, a corresponding increase of shark encounters or deaths. So in reality there's a decline rather than an incline.”
Maybe I should phrase it differently. I'll use the word prevent instead of deter
It does not prevent them but may deter them, however their capacity to learn is somewhat unknown.
Hey Suba here is a fairly clear explanation about cognitive behavior and mental proceses of the white sharks.
www.elasmo-research.org/education/white_shark/mental_process.htm
I have worked at sea for twenty years and a good amount of that was cray fishing along the W.A coast.
Everyday, yes, everyday the boats i worked on were followed by sharks. Mostly whalers and occassional tigers. Never seen a white. I asked the skipper who was 60 years old and had been fishing since he was a boy about the sharks and he said they never used to follow the boats but over the years had come to associate the sound of the motors with a free feed. We used herring, cowhide,Kangaroo cubes, tuna heads as bait and each day we pulled the puts we would change it.
The following sharks consumed everything.
We often fished south of Geraldton at Flatrocks and would be 2 or 300 meters away from the surf break and could see guys riding waves. Looking down over the handrail we could easily see a dozen sharks. Probably 40 /50 boats working out of Geraldton and More out Dongara,Freshwater,Horrocks and a heap of other ports along the W.A coast all the way around to the bight. Each with their own pack of sharks. Thats a lot of sharks.
Has a shark been near you in the water. Undoubtedly so. Did you know it? Very unlikely. Sharks can learn behavior as evidenced by the cow hide and following boats for food. Are they in the process of learning to associate us with food? No. There has been very few attacks compared to the millions upon millions of individual pieces of bait it took to "teach" them to associate boat engines with food.
However random stuff can happen in strange patterns. No attacks for X amount of time and then 3 amount in a short period. Strange yes. Evidence of a sudden change in shark behavior? No.
I think everyone agrees that sharks are the ultimate hunter.They would not still be here if they were not. They use the environment they reside in and its variances to improve their success.Previously learned behavior such as the following will never be "unlearned"
Attack at speed from depth
Use the turbid water at river out flows as concealment.
Use of low light for concealment
Hunt where the food is such as seal rookeries,
Follow migrations of large biomass such as whales.
Do all you can to minimise your exposure to the above and your odds of being on the wrong side of the ultimate survivor get very small indeed.
If all else fails and you are getting chewed by Mr. G. White just remember that their is no malice involved.Not like some thug kicking your door in to beat you up for your wallet.
He just needs you to get by for a bit.
^ Great post. I've also done a stint as a deckhand, feeding the Sharks is defo a highlight..
Those who think Whites are dumb mindless destroyers need to watch less Jaws. They may not be able to do tricks like a Dolphin, but they are very smart at what they do.
This is a report on what happens when a GW gets attacked by a Killer whale.
www.nwf.org/magazines/
^^^ Sounds like a bloody good argument for getting rid of one of the GW's around here - all the rest will piss off to hawaii
I have heard it, several times. I don't think though that spearos are in the best position to determine that a shark shield attracts sharks...given the nature of what we do when we go spearfishing.
But this is my opinion and is not based on detailed research. If someone has peer-reviewed proof to the contrary then I'm more than happy to read it.
Who said great whites are dangerous 
