Shark scare in Orange County?

A couple of days ago, there was a fake shark scare in Newport Beach, CA.

The Orange County Register reports:  

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"NEWPORT BEACH – The warning was clear: A big, aggressive great white shark is on the loose along the shores in Newport Beach, and beachgoers are advised to stay away from the water."

Problem was, local lifeguards and the U.S. Coast Guard never heard of any shark danger. 

“I guess it was one of the local guys; someone who wanted to keep the crowds down at a break out there,” Coast Guard search and rescue controller Sandy Needle said about the notice. “There was nothing from the Coast Guard.” 

The warning – which appeared on official-looking letterhead that said “United States Coast Guard” in the notification dated Wednesday – was floating around on Facebook, claiming that three incidents should put beachgoers on high alert.

The article goes on to give the details of the warning which contained the following paragraph:

The third sighting, the notice read, came when two lifeguards got a call about an adult-sized shark that bumped two kayakers and swam away after the boaters struck it “with an oar in the gill area of the fish.”

So far so good, it looks like the media is responsible for once and instead of hyping up a shark scare, are trying to calm the public.

The article then states, how they recognized the warning as fake.

"Although the flier looked official, there were a lot of clues that it was a fake.
“There’s a lot of misspellings, and it called a shark a fish,” Needle said."
Well there you have it. It called the shark a fish!  No self respecting Coast Guard representative would call a shark a fish! Everyone knows it's not a fish, it's a.... hmm, no not that, it's a ...... , I'm stumped! Any of you know?

Maybe I should be asking an expert in these matters.

You can read the entire article here

Cheers,
Martin Graf
CEO
Shark Diver


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 staff@sharkdiver.com.

Best shark dive in the world?

We just got back from 2 weeks in Fiji, diving with Beqa Adventure Divers. The shark dive is billed as the "Best shark dive in the world". Now that's quite a bold statement. ...... so did they deliver?

For me, to be great, a shark diving operation doesn't just have to deliver awesome shark action, but also  provide education about the sharks they're diving with and be involved in conservation.

As for the shark action, did it live up to the billing? Look at these pictures and judge for yourself.

Did they come close? ...... well, there were still a couple of inches between the shark and my camera.

Too bad they didn't come close ;-)

Did we see a lot of sharks? ......well, there were a couple.

Can you spot the bull shark? ... can you?

Of course, after every dive, there is the boring safety stop. ...... well, maybe not so boring! There was some great action, with white- and black-tip reef sharks buzzing around us the entire time.

"World's best safety stop"

OK, so they delivered on the sharks, but what about the educational aspect and their involvement in conservation? During our surface interval, between shark dives, we had Ben, a marine biologist, tell us all we wanted to know about the bull sharks, their behavior and local migration. He counted the sharks on each dive and knows the sharks individually. They have a database with around 150 different sharks identified, very similar to our photo ID database of the great white sharks at Guadalupe Island.

Beqa Adventure Divers "BAD" bill themselves as a conservation company masquerading as a dive shop and they mean it. During our visit, Shark Diver has seen Projects Abroad go out on "BAD's" boats to conduct various research projects on the reefs on a daily basis. I personally also had the opportunity to tag along (pun intended) on a trip, trying to tag juvenile bull sharks and will write about that experience in a different blog. You can read about all the other conservation projects that "BAD" is involved with here. It's an impressive list!

So is it the best shark dive in the world? I have to admit that I'm partial to "my" great white sharks at Guadalupe Island, but overall I have to say, not only did they meet my expectations, they far exceeded them! We will definitely be back. Stay tuned for details.

Cheers,
Martin Graf
CEO
Shark Diver

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 staff@sharkdiver.com.

Interesting opportunity for shark researchers.

A dead 50' fin whale that washed up on shore at Point Loma in San Diego yesterday, will be towed out to sea by the Marine Conservation Science Institute today. Shark diving, cage diving, swimming with sharks at Isla Guadalupe, with www.sharkdiver.com

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According to a post on their Facebook page, they will use it to try to attract great white sharks and attempt to tag them. Cage diving,shark diving
This is what they posted. cage diving, swimming with sharks,
"BREAKING NEWS!
If all goes as planned, we will be taking possession of this whale carcass at high tide today. We will tow it offshore and then babysit it while we wait for white sharks to find us. When that happens we hope to tag adult females that are in the area for pupping. This will be the first attempt to tag pupping females in southern California. Popup tags, as opposed to SPOT tags, will be used. We will have a short deployment of 140 days to determine where these pupping females have come from."

This is a unique opportunity to tag some sharks and get valuable information on their pupping grounds. It is also a chance to show that great white sharks are not just fierce predators, but also opportunistic feeders, playing their part in keeping the oceans healthy, by eating these rotting carcases.

We hope that they are successful.and maybe they'll see one of "our" Guadalupe sharks, though we think that they are going farther south to pup.

Cheers,
Martin Graf
CEO
Shark Diver
 
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 staff@sharkdiver.com.