"You cry shark and everybody sits up and notices."Jarrod Stehbens, 23, was taken by a Great White Shark off the South Australian Coast yesterday. His parents are pleading for the authorities not to hunt the shark.
David Stehbens said his son would not want the shark involved in the attack killed.None of which is an appetising thought, so to speak - unless you're a Great White Shark of course. People in the immediate area thought the divers were crazy diving near so many boats feeding bait into the sea:
"Jarrod was doing exactly what he wanted to do when it happened, he loved the sea," David Stehbens said.
"He's a very experienced diver, he's done probably over 190 dives, he knew what it was about."
David Stehbens said his son "loved the outdoors and the sea".
"He was a good bloke, that was his character.
"He loved helping people...if anybody needed a hand, he would be the person to jump up and help."
Jarrod Stehbens was diving with University of Adelaide colleagues when taken by the shark.
He was an honours graduate in marine biology at the university and had planned to complete a PHD in Germany starting in two weeks.
He said he and his wife, their son Trent, 21, and daughter Jasmin, 15, were still struggling to comprehend yesterday's tragedy. Jarrod Stehbens, was attacked about two kilometres offshore about 4pm (CST) yesterday.
The University of Adelaide scientist aged in his 20s was on a scuba dive trip to a tyre reef off Glenelg beach when he was taken.
Mr Stehbens and another diver were in the water when two colleagues aboard a boat saw the shark approach.
They managed to haul one of the divers aboard but the shark used its snout to push Mr Stehbens back into the water before his friends could grab him, a colleague of the men, who asked not to be named, said.
An oxygen tank and buoyancy vest were recovered by searchers late yesterday.
Local boatie Keith Klemasz, who was in waters near the Glenelg tyre reef, described the divers as "crazy".
"It's very unfortunate but I don't think it's a good idea to dive when you have got a lot of boats out," Mr Klemasz said.
"It's a feeding pattern, if we are all putting berley in the water, that will attract them [sharks]. It is crazy, they were shark bait."
Another fisherman, Alby Dixon, said he was 100m from the university research boat at the time of the attack.
"I saw them diving but I didn't see any sign of distress. We were close and we didn't even realise it had happened," he said.
Mr Klemasz, 57, was fishing about 100m from the students when the shark attacked.
"I didn't see anything at all until all the choppers started flying over us," he said.
Mr Lemasz said he did not see any sharks while he was out fishing.
"[However] there are a lot of sharks out there all the time," he said.
Professor Bob Hill, of the University of Adelaide's school of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said the group was collecting cuttle fish eggs and all were accredited divers.
"The school will need to have a very serious look at whether similar activity will continue," he said.
"It appears they made every attempt they could to do the right thing while they were out there.
"They were well aware of the dangers and we have very strict occupational health and safety regulations."
The divers had "been out many times before" doing similar research, he said.
A spokesperson for the university said the survivors would speak about their ordeal at a later date.
Look, I really like top predators as they are the most dramatic and dynamic of creatures in the wild, but I've never really gotten comfortable with liking Great White Sharks (or sharks of any kind for that matter): it's a real chore. My primordial fear is always going to be Giant Shark Attack thanks to bloody Spielberg, so it's predictably very hard for me to stand up with conviction and say "protect the big cute toothy things!". The way I see it, it's a case of "dance with wolves, expect to get bitten, swim with Great White Sharks, expect to get eaten". I'm sorry for the family but boy, what was he thinking?
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