by CARMELO AMALFI
JAWS on the walls. Great whites, tigers and mako monsters bare their teeth to visitors at Hugh Edwards’ Cottesloe home.
The diver and author’s fearsome collection includes the jaws from a 4.7 metre superstar shark he caught at the Albany whaling station more than 40 years ago.
The 900kg monster made a cameo appearance in the 1977 horror film Orca. It had been dropped from a cherry picker and filmed by the late Australian shark hunter Ron Taylor and his wife Valerie, the shot later reversed for the film.
At the time Edwards noted a V-shape of tooth marks across the back of the shark’s head: “The thought of the size of the shark that could do THAT had us shaking our heads,” he told the Herald.
For Edwards, knowing the difference between sharks and their jaws and teeth is the key to saving lives off WA’s beaches.
He says bite marks and broken teeth recovered from shark attack victims should be compiled into a database to help reduce the risk of death and injury in WA.
There have been five fatal shark attacks in WA in the last 18 months, earning it the unsettling title of shark attack capital of the world.
Edwards says a database and DNA testing could also prove whether authorities are dealing with more sharks attacking more people or a rogue killer with a distinctive set of teeth and a taste for human blood.
The 80-year-old shipwreck author says attacks often occur in cycles: “It will start, then stop and nothing is heard of again for 10 to 15 years or more. It’s more likely to be one shark.”
Bite marks left on boats, surfboards, surf skis and wildlife such as sea lions should also be added to the database, he says.
DNA evidence
In June last year, a great white at Mullaloo Beach is believed to have taken a chunk out of the surf ski now hanging above diners at Cicerello’s. Next to it is former St Kilda footballer Brian Sierakowski and friend Barney Hanrahan’s double surf ski which in 1997 was attacked by a 5m white pointer off Cottesloe).
Fisheries WA research scientist Rory McAuley told the Herald it was difficult to recover evidence such as teeth and tissues from sharks or their victims.
“The problem often is the bits of recovered teeth don’t always give us enough DNA evidence,” he says. “Usually it is dead tissue where it is not possible to reconstruct the long chains of DNA needed to identify the shark.”
Regularly called to provide evidence to police and coronors after shark attacks, Dr McAuley says many sharks monitored off WA actually come from South Australia, showing the great distances they cover.