Talk:Bull shark

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Contents 1 Testosterone 2 Article in dire need of improvement 3 Solitary? 4 a shark attack 5 Eye contact

[edit] Testosterone

I've changed the previous version which stated that the bull shark has the highest testosterone levels of all animals to read that it has one of the highest, this because I am sitting with a brief guide to elephant seals I got while visiting Año Nuevo State Reserve. It claims that Elephant Seals have the highest levels of testosterone of any animal and this is one of the reasons they were nearly hunted to extinction. Anyone with a field speciality in Sharks and Elephant Seals care to weight in? --Mecil 18:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article in dire need of improvement

I don't know how much the contributors of this article read the articles on other species of sharks. Let me enlighten you. Some are top-drawer, first-class pieces of work (e.g. Oceanic Whitetip Shark & Great White Shark). Others really stink. This one really, really stinks. Let's get busy people. This is an important species - not the Spiny Dogfish. Hokeman 04:53, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

If your interested look at WikiProject Sharks, we are trying to get the shark articles to a good class of work.--chris_huh 15:33, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Solitary?

uhmm.. been to SA, seen the indian ocean.. surfed... these sharks are NOT solitary and the are NOT sluggish. They are pack hunting animals and they KNOW what you are.

[edit] a shark attack

there was a kid that got his arm bit off by a bull shark. Then his uncle pulled the shark onshore shot it, then pryed the sharks mouth open then took the severed arm out. And then they sewed the arm on. Isn't that weird!

[edit] Eye contact

I'm tempted to remove the "maintain eye contact underwater" bit. Seems unlikely to have any scientific backup. Does anybody have a source for that? Yomangani 16:50, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

It is hard to quantify scientific evidence, but I have been told numerous times as a diver that if you want to come close to shark you should not look at them direct eye-to-eye, it is bad to point a camera with a big lens directly at them since they will swim away, and if you are attacked always keep eye contact. (that was the unecientific, own research part) as for direct references do a [google search on ,eye contact shark attack] and you will get [[1]] not very sceintific but still, [[2]] see point 6, I would say very scientific and [[3]] again stating to keep eye contact but not talking about it much, none specific about bull shark though. There are many more web pages stating the same in general, most not very scientific. I tried to find a real book reference and the best I have is Shark Smart, by Richard Martin, the same authour that now calls hims self R. Aidan Martin on the elasmo-research web site above, he is a expert in sharks and have dived with sharks for 10's of years. That book also states to get close, do not look directly at a shark, but does not state that looking directly reduces the risk of attack even though it has a list of things to do to reduce the risk of attack. So I would say that this is at least not wrong (as least as good as we know now) and we should keep this, but I can not find any specific bull shark reference, therefore I will not add the reference but maybe add it as general reference ... I do not know. Stefan 01:49, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

In general there may be some anecdotal evidence for it (maybe it should go on the shark attack page), I was more concerned with its inclusion in this paragraph on bull shark attack patterns, especially as the preceding sentence it talks about shallow and dirty water - this would suggest you crouch down and push your face up against its eyeball. Doesn't sound a particular appealing plan to me! Yomangani 09:49, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, agree on that, can remove from bull shark page, I plan to write a new section on the shark attack page about how to avoid shark attacks and how to behave if you are harassed by sharks, but not much time now. Stefan 10:03, 3 July 2006 (UTC)