Nick Zarlinga
"If we ignore nature.....maybe it'll go away."
----- Original Message -----
From: "matt coburn" <matttcoburn_at_hotmail.com>
To: <junk1_at_fish.la.asu.edu>
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 8:37 PM
Subject: lamprey attack
> Hi ,
> My name is Mat Coburn. I had done a google search this morning on 'Lamprey
> attacks on humans' and stumbled over some conversations about the subject
> linked to your site. Well the reason why I curious about this is that last
> night toward dusk my girlfriend and i went for our usual 2km swim on a
> friday evening off mornington pier, melbourne, Australia where she was
> attacked by one. We had swam down the beach to a yellow buoy parallel to
the
> beach away from the jetty, turned and came back to the jetty. On the
> leeward side of the jetty and breakwater, is a small harbour with several
> commercial and sailing boats moured. It was within the boundariy of the
> harbour where Crissy was attacked by a lamprey. She was swimming without a
> wetsuit and it had attached itself to her outer thigh.Crissy had felt
> something interfer with her freestyle kick as it finally attached itself
to
> her upper outer side of her leg. She immediately grabbed it and wrenched
it
> off her leg tossing it across the surface of the water.It wriggled in her
> hand . At this time i was getting out of the water and Id looked back at
> Crissy who was not far behind me. She was understandably upset and cryed
> from the shock of it as she got out at the boat ramp. There was a circular
> abrasion mark about the size of a twenty cent piece with blood leaking out
> of three parallel cuts within the circle of the abrasion. I am a qualified
> marine biologist and am amazed at what has happened. I never have heard
that
> lampreys would do this.I am keen to go back to the area of the harbour on
> scuba to see if i can locate one..There is a place 40 km away where i know
> lampreys move up the Bunyip River to breed amongst the course sand. You
can
> stand Barefoot on the sand in this sand and disturb them and catch one.
The
> local kids have shown me this. Years ago I'd caught three of them, and
> observed them in a fish tank. I had baited them with my arm but they were
> not interested. Well, its saturday morning 10.55am and Crissy is still
> sleeping it off! I will find a good camera to take a photo of the wound.
My
> email address is matttcoburn_at_hotmail.com. Please reply.
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Hot chart ringtones and polyphonics. Go to
> http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilemania/default.asp
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