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http://www.floridatoday.com/news/local/stories/2001/sep/loc090701i.htm Sept. 7, 2001 Florida panel bans shark feeding By John Tuohy FLORIDA TODAY AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. - In a swift change of course, environmental regulators Thursday agreed to ban shark feeding in Florida waters. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission voted 6-1 to write a rule that prohibits feeding of sharks and other marine predators, including eels and rays. The rule will be considered at its next meeting Oct. 31. The action took diving tour operators, who feed the sharks to give scuba diving tourists a close-up look at them, by surprise. The commission had been expected to consider only rules to regulate, not ban, shark-feeding dives. "They basically bowed to pressure. They said let's bury these guys and show the people of Florida we are doing something about sharks, even though nobody has ever been seriously hurt on a dive," said Jim Abernathy, owner of Jim Abernathy's Scuba Adventures in Palm Beach, one of four shark-feeding tour companies in Florida. Tour captains argued that feedings are educational because they teach people sharks are not the aggressive killers they often are perceived to be. They disputed claims by conservationists that feeding sharks puts people at risk because they learn to rely on them, and seek people for food. But the commissioners appeared leery of both arguments. "We needed to have some comfort that we weren't altering the sharks' behavior, and we just couldn't get that," Commission Chairman David Meehan said. Ironically, Meehan said, it was videotapes provided by the shark tour guides in their own defense that convinced him the practice could teach the predators dangerous habits. "I didn't realize that there was such an abnormal concentration of sharks when they were fed until I saw the videos," Meehan said. "It was like they responded to the dinner bell." Dan Wagner, an undersea documentary maker from Indialantic who feeds sharks to get his best shots, said the vote will cost the state tourist dollars. "With no scientific proof that fish feeding underwater had anything to do with any attacks anywhere, the commission put four people out of business," he said. -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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