AC/DC Found To Have A Calming Effect On Great White Sharks
AC/DC Found To Have A Calming Effect On Great White Sharks
June 2, 2011
Eyre Peninsula’s Matt Waller has added another tip to the ‘don’t get eaten’ handbook with his discovery that Great White’s are much less aggressive when listening to ACDC – particularly ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’.
Daniel Fraser of ABC.net.au reports that a South Australian charter boat operator has made a fascinating discovery whilst conducting research into what kinds of music affect the behaviour of Great White Sharks.
Every sensible swimmer knows that avoiding a school of bait fish or immediately leaving the water if a cut started to bleed is ‘best practice’ when attempting to avoid a meeting with a shark.
But Eyre Peninsula’s Matt Waller has added another tip to the ‘don’t get eaten’ handbook with his discovery that Great White’s are much less aggressive when listening to ACDC – particularly ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’.
“I was talking to a guy who had been diving in Guadeloupe and there were some divers there who just been playing music in the water,” Waller said. “We got talking and they said yes there were some certain songs that worked and certain songs that didn’t in terms of an actual change in the behaviour of the sharks. I started going through my albums and ACDC was something that really hit the mark. Their behaviour was more investigative, more inquisitive and a lot less aggressive – they actually came past in a couple of occasions when we had the speaker in the water and rubbed their face along the speaker which was really bizarre.”
Having already helped the nation’s underwater music-lovers stay one step ahead of the ocean’s most deadly hunter, Waller admitted the real find would be in discovering the Great White Sharks musical antithesis.
“Were looking at firstly identifying exactly what the frequencies are,” Waller said. “Sharks don’t have ears so it’s more about trying to establish what frequency and vibration in the water that appeals to the sharks. If we can establish what that is it puts us a step to understanding more about this animal. I have this thought that if there is something that attracts them there is obviously going to be something that they reject — maybe it would be Justin Bieber who knows.”
Gold Coast Great White Shark researcher Dr Jonathon Werry agreed that any research that gives us a greater understanding of sharks is worthwhile.
Working on a five-year shark tagging program off the Queensland Coast, Werry said it was likely that the music simply attracted the animals because it was something new.
“Sharks have really well developed senses,” Werry said. “Anything new is something that they will often investigate. What Matt has come across I have seen in other species of sharks particularly in remote areas where sharks maybe haven’t come into contact with people or boats before and just the slightest noise will actually bring them in to see what that new thing in the area is.”
Courtesy of www.sleazeroxx.com and www.abc.net.au