Growing number of aquariums open tanks to divers

We have been blogging about this ongoing debate for the past year. This morning the Associated Press has come out with an article that takes on the newest trend in scuba diving-Commercial Aquarium Diving:

1. Sharky Commercial Aquarium Trends

2. The futue of commercial shark diving?

3. Aquarium's Get Into The Action $$$ For Sharks

4. Georgia Aquarium-Calling Bullshit!

AP Report:
SYRACUSE, N.Y. - Still enthralled, Debra Kurtz described how a 6-foot-long zebra shark, a predator that patrols the western Pacific and Indian oceans, swam around her head.

Then there was the playful 300-pound, green sea turtle, an endangered species from tropical waters, that kept trying to crawl underneath her as she knelt in the sand.

Her favorites, though, were the angelfish, which clustered around her to take sand showers, swimming through the grains of sand she let slip through her fingers.

Not bad for an hour's worth of scuba diving. The 44-year-old sales and marketing management consultant from Vernon Hills, Ill., was a guest diver at the National Aquarium in Baltimore while on a recent business trip. A growing number of aquariums across the country from Denver to Duluth, from Long Island to Tampa are opening their exhibit tanks to certified scuba divers.