Sunday, May 13, 2012

Cristina Zenato Commercial Shark Divings Great New Voice

Baiting at Isla Guadalupe 2005
Thanks to some simply awful self inflicted media coming out of South Africa this month the world of sharks, commercial shark diving, and yes shark baiting has blown up again.

We go through this cycle once a year, but this time thanks in large part to Chris Fischer and the circus surrounding the tragic death of a young South African at the hands of a white shark, this cycle seems a bit more frantic with anti-cage diving folks finding some wind in their sails to produce an onslaught of hysteria that would make even Peter Benchley cringe.

Thankfully the commercial shark diving world has Cristina Zenato who has begun to post her observations on our industry in a way that's refreshing, to the point, and for those who have an issue with commercial shark diving, informative.

We have been fans of Cristina for quite a few years and watched her quiet rise through the industry with anticipation. She's a smart, edgy, no nonsense kind of person who speaks to the issues surrounding sharks with a compassionate voice.

Read her latest blog post  Shark Diving, Shark Feeding and Common Sense.

This is as good as it get's and for our industry the timing is perfect.

Simply defining the interaction with all sharks as a feeding or a non-feeding situation is too simplistic. It would collect approximately 400 species of sharks under the single umbrella of generalized gray, tubular, finned, toothed creatures who just swim around the oceans behaving as we would want them to behave. Instead we can, and should, take the time to learn how each and every shark species behaves. This can be a controversial and difficult topic to present -- please understand that there will always be unique situations and habitat niches. As with any complex issue, knowledge and understanding are key.

 Kudos Cristina.

Albert Falco and Cousteau Dancing in Heaven

If you missed it last week here's the very cool video that undoubted has a whole room full of deceased underwater explorers dancing in heaven. Say what you want about deep water oil and gas exploration, the last five years have yielded up a cornucopia of deep water video that simply boggles the imagination.

This video stands at the pinnacle of simply stunning animal discover and interaction.

Go to 1.50 to start seeing this critter in all it's mysterious glory:

 

About Shark Diver. As a global leader in commercial shark diving and conservation initiatives Shark Diver has spent the past decade engaged for sharks around the world. Our blog highlights all aspects of both of these dynamic and shifting worlds. You can reach us directly at sharkcrew@gmail.com.

Best of 2011 at Isla Guadalupe - Martin Graf

A couple of days ago I talked about how I got started at Isla Guadalupe.

Today I'm going to share a couple of things I do during those trips. I'm always collecting pictures and videos from our Shark divers, both for our photo database and a trip video. Our database identifies the sharks, by looking at the transition from the grey to the white, which is like a fingerprint and different for each shark. So far we have identified over 120 different individuals, some of which we have seen every single year for the past 10 years. If we have a new shark that hasn't been identified, the photographer whose picture we use to identify it, gets to name the Shark. How cool is that?

I compile pictures and videos for a slide show/video and burn it onto a DVD for each Shark Diver to take home. The following is an example from last season!

Cheers,

Martin Graf
Dive Operations Manager
Shark Diver/Horizon
Isla Guadalupe, Mexico





About Shark Diver. As a global leader in commercial shark diving and conservation initiatives Shark Diver has spent the past decade engaged for sharks around the world. Our blog highlights all aspects of both of these dynamic and shifting worlds. You can reach us directly at sharkcrew@gmail.com.