Sharks are getting a bad press but injuries are few and far between

TELEVISION footage of a great white shark crashing through the bars of a cage off Mexico’s Guadalupe Island has been seen worldwide. 

The huge fish was lured to the cage with “chum”, a smelly fish mixture pulled on a line through the water. Adult sharks can weigh up to 800kg, half as much as a car.

Moving too fast, this one penetrated the cage and found itself sharing the confined space with a diver. Horrified onlookers raised the cage lid and the bloodied shark fled. The diver emerged unscathed. His 20-second ordeal had seemed an eternity but the shark didn’t attack him. It just wanted to escape.