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Killer shark 'utter rubbish'
31/07/2007 16:05 - (SA)
London - Claims that a killer shark has been spotted off the English coast were dismissed on Tuesday as alarmist, just as holidaymakers head en masse for the seaside.
The scare started after a tourist took pictures of a menacing-looking fin jutting from the water last week, 182.88m from the beach near the popular Cornish resort of St Ives.
"Jaws 2" headlined the mass-market Sun tabloid on Monday, publishing photos and a video of the alleged great white shark's fin and claiming on Tuesday there might even be two.
But experts have lined up to insist that, while a great white cannot be ruled out, the sighting is far more likely to be a basking shark, quite common in British waters and entirely harmless to humans.
"Having now seen the pictures in the paper I can confidently say the most recent sighting is simply a basking shark," Richard Peirce, chairperson of the Shark Trust, told the Independent daily.
The Cornish coastguard said the claims were "utter rubbish" and would not help tourist trade already hit by record rainfall.
'Definitely a great white'
"The poor tourist industry this year is having a really hard time. The last thing we need is scaremongering over some footage," said Marc Thomas of Falmouth Coastguard.
The Sun was unrepentant, quoting a "bombshell" confirmation by "leading Aussie shark watcher Dave 'Sharkman' Baxter" that the beast was definitely a great white, adding: "Her mate will be close by."
"That's definitely a great white, there's absolutely no doubt in my mind," he told the paper, while admitting that such sharks are more normally seen around Australia or South Africa.
Others saw in the shark scare the start of Britain's annual journalistic "silly season", when a lack of more serious news leads to all sorts of fishy tales.
Downplaying the story
"The Sun seems to run this story every summer. Just because parliament has gone into recess does not make this a great white shark," expert David Sims told the daily Guardian.
Even the Times, part of the same News International stable as the Sun, downplayed the story, playfully headlining an editorial on the scare: "Some-Fin Fishy."
"The creature off the Cornish coast may be a great white shark. Or it may not," it said.
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