ONE of Australian shark hunter Vic Hislop's more endearing qualities is his respect for the views of experts. Like marine biologists and environmentalists, for example, who believe sharks should be studied and saved, not slayed.
Vic, you will recall, is the tough-talking fisherman with a mobile phone who claims to have killed more sharks in the past 30 years than most people have had hot dinners.
Two years ago he trawled the waters off Sai Kung for a week in a hopeless bid to catch the shark he believed responsible for chewing hapless bathers. And this month, in the wake of another three fatal attacks in the same area, he has been trying to hawk himself to the Hong Kong Government for another crack at the terror from the deep.
Alas, Vic has been passed over. The chairman of the Government's 'inter-departmental working group on shark attacks', Ian Petersen, has recruited instead the senior biologist in ichthyology (the study of fishes) at the Florida Museum of Natural History, Dr George Burgess, to 'provide on-the-spot expert advice' on shark attacks.
The news has not gone down well in Cairns, Australia, where Vic makes his living.
'The Government's done what? Gone and hired a bloody (expletive deleted) marine biologist? Jesus wept, they can't be serious,' he said as he wiped blood from his brow after killing a five-metre tiger shark one day this week.
'Who wants to save sharks in Hong Kong? This is the same place where you cut the heads off turtles while they're still moving and then eat them, and these (expletive deleted) want to study something that has eaten 20 people.
'I'm the best in the world, everybody knows that, and your government has brought in somebody who studies fish in (expletive deleted) tanks. This is a joke.'
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