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Talk about a no-brainer. How hard can it be to figure this one out? The big predators learn faster than we do apparently. The National Park Service ended public bear feedings in Yellowstone National Park in 1941 when they figured out it was a dumb idea to have bears associate humans with food. They stopped doing the same thing in the big African game parks too. And the funny thing is, people still visit the parks anyway. The dive industry in these locations needs to stop the circus and learn to market what they actually have. -Kent- -----Original Message----- From: Joel Markwell [mailto:joeldm@mi*.co*] Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2001 3:12 AM To: trey@ne*.co*; Byron Grogan; Techdiver Subject: Re: Media blames divers for shark attacks On 8/21/01 11:33 PM, "Trey" <girvine@be*.ne*> wrote: > > I agree - sharks learn very fast. When Pina and I were diving in the > Bahamas, they would come up and sit at the transom waiting for us so that we > basically had to jump on them to get into the water, and then they followed > us around and got closer and closer until they were obnoxious. > > In Cat Cay, we used to throw the carcasses of the tuna in the water at one > end of the island from the shore. Tigers 10 feet long would be waiting there > every evening for their tuna meal. > > I notice that diving here they come rushing up now when they see a diver. > The thing about requiem sharks in the wild is that it takes them hours to > get their nerve up unless of course there is feeding going on. Like this > article says, many have lost their fear. When diving in the Bahamas over the years, there are several sites where, as soon as the boat pulls up the sharks congregate. Several years ago I was diving with some friends close to a feeding site (we weren't feeding sharks) and a group of about a dozen shadowed us the whole dive, bumping us and swimming in formation for the whole dive. When it was clear to them we weren't feeding them, about half peeled off, but the rest were right there and they all stayed in the area. If they hear a prop, they congregate, no matter the site. There's no question in my mind that commercial shark feeds teach them to associate divers/boats with food. Does that translate into increased attacks? Well, they don't attack divers and divers are the ones who feed them, but overall who knows? It can't be good. The sharks I saw in Fiji, swimming in packs, would swoop up out of the deep, see us and do a cursory check and then head on, hunting along the walls. They were clearly wild sharks, almost completely unaffected by man. Our encounter with them was a lot more exciting to me than sitting on the bottom watching some guy is a metal suit hand-feed virtually "tamed" sharks frozen fish. I was with a group that wanted to do the shark feed dive a couple of years ago and as my son really wanted to do it, so I joined them. I was pretty much disgusted by it. JoeL -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'. -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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