Vic Hislop is Australia's and possibly the world's most experienced and prolific shark hunter, enjoying international renown for his work.

If you are unfamiliar with Vic's work, perhaps the best introduction comes from the only web site authorised by Vic Hislop on the Internet. http://www.ozmagic3.homestead.com/VicHislopSharkExpo.html)

As the site offers,

Vic Hislop is an Australian Icon. Most Australians know him as the ...Shark Man.... Vic is the world's leading authority on Man'Eating Sharks. His amazing life catching these man'eaters has been of benefit to science and his numerous donations of sharks, whales and other species to museums around the world have supplied us with a valuable knowledge of creatures that we know very little about.

But is hasn't been an easy road to glory for Vic.

He has been called many things in his illustrious shark slaying ' nay, slaughtering' career: environmental terrorist; upsetter of ecosystems; delusional madman with god complex to boot. But there is only one title that truly suits the great man, and that title is Hero.

Before you cast a stone in Vic's direction, answer this: When was the last time you jumped in a tinny with a powerhead shotgun and gaff and massacred fourteen tiger sharks just so a doomed Minke whale named Minnie would die knowing she had a friend in the ever'reddening water? Where's the 22'foot Great White Shark in your freezer, half'fucked and falling to pieces like a poorly preserved Ho Chi Minh? Where do you find the gall to insult the tenuous grip on sanity of a man dedicated to ridding the sea of great evil just so you and yours can paddle safely in the shallows on your pissy summer holiday?

Vic is also the man who doesn't laugh, because the man who laughs is yet to hear the terrible news. Vic knows the shocking secret of official cover'ups and bureaucratic indifference to the menace that stalks our fair oceans, bays and inlets. The shocking truth of the menace responsible for every unsolved missing persons case in any coastal area.

The menace of the shark' cold, mindless thug of the sea. The indiscriminate killing machine with no place in any ecosystem.

More than anything, Vic knows these killing machines must be stopped. Sliced, splayed, sprayed, eviscerated, EXTERMINATED. Ruthlessly pursued to the depths of the oceans until there's nothing left of them but their decaying remains with a big hole in the top of the head courtesy of a Vic Hislop delivered coup de grace in the form of a solid lead shotgun round. Only then will the sea be safe again for worthy sea creatures like whales, dolphins and turtles. Only then will the greenies and bureaucrats who forever stood in Vic's righteous path admit they were so very wrong about the only man who had the vision and guts to see his dream of a safe sea through to the bittersweet end.

Vic has spent the majority of his life studying sharks. As a result there are very few men with Vic's unique knowledge and beliefs in the field of marine biology. So few men in fact, there's actually only one. And that man is Vic. Vic Hislop. Vic's solid belief 'in stark contrast to most institutional and scientifically established bodies of thought' is that sharks are an unnecessary blight on the marine world. They are senseless eating machines that eat until they are full, disgorge, then start the whole process again. There is no point in them being in the oceans except to cause misery, and thus must be eliminated.

Sure, the greenies, bureaucrats and "scientists" will tell you that sharks have played an important part in marine ecosystems for thousands of years, ensuring the continual improvement of marine genetics through some twisted scheme of survival of the fittest. But wasn't that the same argument the Nazis used when they sent handicapped children off to the gas chambers? And what would the academics know about anything anyway? While they were safely out of harm's way in their white coats and labs, concocting their half'baked theories about what goes on outside the cloistered walls of their "institutions of learning", Vic was out there in the treacherous university of life learning first hand exactly what does go on beneath the waves. While the Ruperts and Lucindas of this world were contemplating their books and Beaujolais, Vic was out there in the merciless sea with a bloodied gaff in one hand and his double'barrelled 12 gauge in the other sending one demon of the deep after another back to Satan from whence they bloody well came. One day in the boat with Vic and the scent of blood and brine in the nostrils would teach any young student far more than any number of years in school. Which brings us to Vic Hislop's Shark World.

Ever the little doer, Vic has created two shark museums to share his hard won knowledge with the rest of us. The main museum is located in Cairns and the second of the franchise in Harvey Bay, both in Queensland. The museums are distinguishable by their car parks that feature chillingly life'like re'enactments of Vic landing a Great White. I don't know who took ten minutes out of their day to dump an old boat and some grey foam on the footpath and top the whole thing off by clothing a mannequin and gluing a moustache to it, but I take my hat off to them.

Visitors enter by walking through a massive reconstruction of a Great White's mouth and into the museum. Inside are numerous photos of Vic with his slain prey that clearly show a man who loves his work. Even the hardest of hearts cannot help but be touched by the enthusiasm in Vic's boyish grin as he poses next to a set of shark jaws just cut from a twitching carcass of Hammerhead, Great White or Tiger. There's a little cinema where you can view 1970s television documentaries of Vic when he was just hitting his stride as a shark hunter and his moustache was at its most virile. Of all the exhibits, perhaps the most interesting is a reconstruction of a prehistoric shark's jaw, big enough for a man to walk through. Vic writes the captions for his exhibits and states that he has no doubts that to this day giant sharks still cruise the deepest parts of the ocean, feeding on giant squid and the like. But it's not all fun and games in the museum. The world of shark hunting is not populated solely by men such as Vic Hislop. Inevitably there are crackpots and loonies out there too as is documented by the numerous inexplicable letters from councils and government agencies advising, warning and ordering Vic to stop killing sharks in various marine preserves. But no amount of interference from officialdom can take away Vic's greatest achievement: The 22'foot Great White ' preserved for all eternity in a cool room with a glass viewing panel. Looking into glimpses of the sunken black eyes of this frozen monster, the visitor is initially struck by fear. It is only after the shock wears off that you realise the beast is well and truly dead and you don't have to be thankful for the glass barrier; and the fact that the shark is not as structurally sound as it once was.

All in all, the museum is a great place to visit and stands testament to the astounding achievements of one man with the capacity to cling dearly to a single thought and mission. The visitor is left with the impression of a driven man with the courage to continue his inspired work no matter how many writs, bans and court orders are stacked against him. No matter how endangered the species, there's something convincing in Vic's cheeky smile that say it's OK to kill it.

So raise a glass to Vic Hislop. A true Australian Hero. The little bloke from Cairns who thought he could and did. A man who has lived a selfless life devoted to freeing his fellow Australians from underwater oppression. And when you've drained your glass, smash it in the face of the soft looking cunt over there and tell 'im Vic sent ya.