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On 9/8/01 4:45 PM, "Preston Hobbie" <hphobbie@at*.ne*> wrote: > ..... she's a witch! ... The reality is that no one knows why there seems to be a lot of shark attacks this year. Stats seem to suggest that there are no more attacks this year than the average, just more media, perhaps. But that doesn¹t negate the fact that feeding wild animals is a bad idea. Florida banned feeding alligators a long time ago and yet there is no one out there complaining about it because there isn't anyone making a buck taking tourists on "gator feeds." Gator wrestlers do so within the confines of a pen with captive alligators. The national parks banned feeding of bears and in both cases it was to prevent the association by these wild animals with humans as a source of food. Why should sharks be the exception? Do any parks anywhere encourage or even allow people to feed animals in any but very controlled situations such as a petting zoos? Feeding wild animals is a stupid idea. And then suggesting that divers are "learning" anything from these feeds is even stupider. There is nothing natural about the way a shark behaves at a feed. If you want to teach divers about sharks, there are plenty of places to see sharks in their natural habitats behaving normally without pouring fish heads and blood into the water. What an idiotic practice! I've been in the water with fed and unfed sharks and they behave very differently. The fed sharks are MUCH more aggressive towards humans, I've been bumped and charged by these fed sharks close to feeding sites and they won't leave you alone. Wild sharks are for the most part wary of divers and while they will check you out, they don't hang around to be petted, like you can a fed shark. Who is to say that this behavior doesn't translate to their behavior towards swimming and surfing humans? Many sharks are known to have a wide range of travel. And even the simplest life forms on earth can be taught to associate certain conditions with food. The fact is that no one knows for sure one way or another. These Florida officials are simply reacting to a public relations nightmare and doing the only thing they could rationally do: end a bad and potentially dangerous practice with no advantages to anyone except the very few operators who engage in this as a profitable attraction. And let's call it what it really is, it's a thrill ride. They'll just have to earn a living like other dive operators do, taking divers to good divesites. And if they know where sharks are, they can take them there too and then maybe their customers really can learn something real about the shark other than that they get aggressive when there's blood and food floating about in the water. . . . Or maybe they can take up 'gator wrestling. JoeL -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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