Shark attack memories flood back for Dunedin victim's brother

Friday, 24 July 2015

It sounds like a plot from the movie Jaws.

A rogue shark responsible for multiple deaths and leaving citizens too afraid to go back into the water.

But this was real life Dunedin, not some Hollywood blockbuster.

Between 1964 and 1966, three men were killed by a great white shark around the Dunedin coastline.

The last of those fatalities Graeme Hitt, 24, died at Aramoana on September 15, 1968.

Hitt was spearfishing with four other members of the Southern Sea Divers Club when the attack happened.

A large shark – estimated to be over 4-metre-long – circled one of the divers before attacking Hitt, biting his left leg and severing his femoral artery.

Hitt yelled out 'help me, help' to his fellow divers, one of whom braved the bloodied water and circling shark to help him to the nearby Aramoana Mole, where he died.

Errol Hitt, of Rangiora, remembers the day when a young police officer came to his family home to deliver the news of his older brother's death.

Each shark attack story, such as this week's tale of survival from Australian surfer Mick Fanning, brought back memories of that day, he said.

His brother's name is now on a plaque overlooking Dunedin's St Clair beach, joining Leslie Jordan (February 5, 1964), William Black (March 9, 1967) who, as the inscription says, were ' taken by the great white shark on our coast'.

That plaque was donated by shark attack survivor Barry Watkins, who was attacked by a 4m long shark while surfing at St Clair on March 30, 1971.

Watkins was one of two survivors of a great white attack, along with surfer Gary Barton, who was attacked at St Clair on Christmas Day in 1968.

In a remarkable coincidence, Hitt knew both Jordan and Black through school and mutual friends. Their deaths left him and the wider Dunedin community shaken.

'Certainly after Graeme died I stopped going in the water . . . you just never know.'

His brother's death devastated their parents and that grief was compounded with any reports of other attacks.

He recalled more shark hysteria in the 70s after the release of Jaws, 'and it took me quite a few years to watch that'.

And like the plot from that movie, he believed the Dunedin shark deaths were the work of one great white, potentially attracted by the regularly dumping of fish offal near the entrance of Otago Harbour.

In the space of seven years, there were five great white attacks – three fatal – off the Dunedin coast.

Following the Dunedin attacks, and with the city having the unenviable record of having the worst shark attack fatality record in the country, the council installed shark nets.

They were removed in 2011 after to concerns about their effectiveness and cost.

Department of Conservation shark expert Clinton Duffy said with no photo taken of the sharks involved in the Dunedin attacks, there was no way of knowing for certain if it was the same shark.

A description from a diver who was with Hitt when he died, indicated the shark was more than 4m long.

Duffy said based on that length the shark, which would have been a mature male but too small to be a mature female, would have weighed around 800kg.

Many theories were floated about the attacks, including one that the sharks may have come from Australia, ending up in the 'thermal cul-de-sac' off the Otago Peninsula.

Theories about a rogue shark were enhanced by a report from the early 70s of a large great white caught in the Otago Peninsula.

'There wasn't an attack since so that may explain why,' Duffy said.

'But we will never know.'