Does Ecotourism in the Bahamas affect Tiger Shark Movement and Behavior?

Bahamas Shark Expedition - Good Idea

With the stunning news last month that shark finning was being "looked into" by a seafood export company based in the Bahamas, a counter series of conservation media hits by Wolfgang Leander and others have been highlighting Bahamas sharks as a sustainable resource trying to fend off further shark fin discussions in the region.

Now an expedition with Dr. Guy Harvey and Jim Abernathy is providing a much needed media lift to this discussion by documenting Bahamas sharks.

Good news indeed.

Bahamas Shark Fin - Tracking the Players

The stunning news that a commercial Sea Cucumber operation in the Bahamas is considering moving into shark fin harvesting should have pretty much every single commercial diving operation in the regional and beyond in an uproar.

This is the worst news to hit the region for sharks in a decade.

Once shark finning begins it will be nearly impossible to stop and with the lack of fisheries enforcement in the region it will spread.

Currently shark fin retails for anywhere from $150-$1400 a kilo making this a top priority. Sea Cucumber also retails for anywhere from $40-$300 a kilo.

The company in question is SUNCO Wholesale Seafood LTD and has existing trade contacts in China with Shenzhen Fengyuhua Trade Co., Ltd via a shell company in New Jersey Yafee Inc.

A call to Yafee Inc this morning confirmed they are a dried seafood wholesale outfit.

Good News?

In May of 2010 a new seafood trade association The Bahamas Marine Exporters Association (BMEA) was formed in the Bahamas to manage sustainable lobster fisheries in tandem with outside help and guidance from NGO's.

The BMEA has an existing relationship with WWF in the region making WWF an additional point source to leverage fisheries contacts to begin the process of rolling back SUNCO's regional shark fin ambitions in tandem with The Bahamas National Trust.

Update: The Bahamas Commercial Fisheries Alliance is taking point on this issue.

The Shark Con - Industry Backlash and Opportunity?

The Shark Con.

As predicted it has aroused quite a L'orage du merde among members of the shark diving and shark conservation community.

If the litmus test for industry anger and backlash could be measured in email terabytes, then this "documentary" would win all manner of awards.

Having not seen the film but watched the evolution of it within the industry I am struck at how fast some of those involved with the film are running for the hills. Disavowing their on screen presence and soft pedaling their way out the back door.

You either support a film or you do not. As far as media is concerned you are defined by it.

This is a statement we made about this production team and their circle of friends in 2009, and it still stands to this day.

Far too many within our industry try and have it both ways, acting as conservationists and then wholeheartedly endorsing, supporting, and enabling shark productions that, in a time of a well defined shark crises, do nothing for sharks and everything for those that buy and sell shark productions for profit.

There are persistent rumors that some featured in this film had its intent misrepresented on the front end, thereby were sandbagged for their on screen quotes.

Regardless of the films doco circut run and laurels for "being selected," the current news (?) that has many in a righteous fury is that this film is now going to see a prime time run on a major network.

Opportunity?

The opportunity exists for those involved with this film to step back and reconsider.

It is one thing to produce a well researched, well balanced documentary with serious voices who can speak to the often byzantine and complicated issues of commercial shark diving, shark conservation, and shark media. It is another to Michael Moore your way though a tantamount wildlife issue in the time of crises with "colorful onscreen characters."

The Shark Cons responsibility to a wider uninformed audience is to present real and lasting facts.

As the industry knows, the general public, as far as shark facts are concerned will believe almost anything regurgitating factoids about sharks around office water coolers for years to come. It is conservations greatest challenge surmounting these man made hyper perceptions we often see on Shark Week, making The Shark Con an uncertain commodity in a time of wildlife and oceans crises.

Read Public Knowledge, Attitude, Behaviour Towards Sharks and Shark Conservation.

One year ago this same team enabled this production on the Today Show, leaving many to wonder if they possess the media wisdom to truly pull off - The Shark Con:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Shark Week 2010 - Yes I Actually Liked This

Shark Week - You know it is refreshing, after two years of ranting, to actually like a show on Shark Week and this is one of this years stand outs. Is it possible to do mainstream shark productions without the hype?

Yes, yes it is.

This is smart shark television, well done Discovery, well done Stuarts Cove, well done sharks.

By the way anyone who says that commercial shark diving is not good for sharks should watch this piece, this is pro shark, pro industry messaging of the highest order.

Stuart Cove - Pro Shark Media 101

Hard not to be impressed with commercial shark operator Stuart Cove, Bahamas. As a template for "How to do Shark Media 101" today's ABC News GMA piece was a cornucopia of pro shark images, data, and industry quotes.

As a commercial shark diving operator you can do pro shark, pro industry media. As Stuarts Cove has aptly demonstrated you need to pick your partners well.

Running with the three tenets of shark media, host country, sharks, and divers this weekend Stuart Cove rolled out a great piece that carefully balanced all three and delivered an industry home run:

The divers feed the sharks small amounts of food to better observe them, but they're careful not to disrupt the ecosystem. A scientist from a Vancouver university who studies these Caribbean reef sharks estimates the food from the divers has about as much impact on the sharks' diets as eating one grape a day would have on a human's diet.

Complete Story

The Today Show - Shark Media Gone Bad

"When you play with hungry sharks...you can pay the price"

Recently we blogged about the "Sin of Media", the promotion of negative shark media to main stream sources for personal gain. We have also blogged about the main stream medias bias as primarily anti-shark.

There are very few credible shark diving operators that do not understand this basic fact and yet this morning one of the worst shark diving pieces to air on national television was seen by an estimated 4 million viewers, anti shark diving advocates, the Bahamian Government, and others.

We are not content to sit by and entertain the thought that this operation did not know who The Today Show was, or had no media control over this piece. The number one rule with mainstream media is, if you are not sure, do not do it.

The Today Show, not surprisingly, introduced this piece with one of the worst cage breaches to have ever been caught on tape, and then ended this piece with the Markus Groh shark diving death. Once again framing an entire 200 million dollar global industry in an extreme and negative light.

The result this morning was an absolute black eye for the entire shark diving industry.

Extreme Shark Diving

The Extreme Shark Diving agenda hurts our industry. It it indefensible. It skates on a thin veneer of legitimacy and when inevitably it fails, and someone is bitten or killed by a shark, our industry and those in it who have moved past the experiment of Extreme Shark Diving are harmed. Not to mention the perception of sharks in general, thrown back to the stone age as little more than ravening killers.

As each piece of recent video seen on this mornings Today Show attests, these negative shark diving elements just serve to add to the argument against shark diving. There's a theme here, and it is our own industry members who are providing the basic framework for this theme. The time for this has ended.

If operators want to offer Extreme Shark Diving encounters they are entitled to, as are the divers and photographers who are drawn to these encounters. What they are not entitled to do is take the rest of the industry down with them by propagating media that harms the industry regionally and internationally.

The Bahamas

In 2006-7 the Bahamas Dive Association sent a Cease and Desist order to all operators at Tiger Beach and vessels that used this site - the details were specific. The operators who come in from the USA are guests in the region, nothing more or less. It boggles the imagination, that even after an operator shark death, US operations have not only failed to acknowledge the C and D but have ramped up extreme operations to a level that is clearly not sustainable.

Worse yet they are promoting these activities on national television effectively thumbing their noses at the Bahamas Government and Tourism Bahamas whose lively hood depends on tourism and whose balance of dollars comes not from US based shark diving operators but from a multi million dollar hotel industry.

Commercial shark diving operations are built on three foundations. Commercial encounters, regional conservation efforts, and regional politics. As a commercial shark diving operator you ignore regional politics at your own peril.

Dangerous Shark Species Interaction Warning Letter 2006-7

To: All Dive Operations Conducting Questionable Dangerous Species Shark Interactions in the Waters of The Islands of The Bahamas

From: Bahamas Diving Association, Official Recognized Diving Association for 36 members of The Islands of The Bahamas

To Whom It May Concern;

We have become aware that some dive operators have chosen to disregard standard safe-diving practices as it relates to interactions with Tiger Sharks and other potentially dangerous species of Sharks, in various locations within the waters of The Islands of The Bahamas.

The Bahamas Diving Association endorses and suggests all dive operators in the legal waters of The Islands of The Bahamas follow GMAC guidelines for conducting potentially dangerous marine-life and human interactions.

In such, we recommend all operations immediately cease and desist conducting open-water non-cage Shark Diving experiences with known species of potentially dangerous Sharks, such as Tiger Sharks, Bull Sharks, Hammerhead Sharks, Lemon Sharks & Mako Sharks.

Species that we have determined safe to interact with outside of a cage are Caribbean Reef Sharks, Black Tip Sharks, Black-Nose Sharks, Nurse Sharks and Silky Sharks.

Many operators in the Bahamas conduct shark diving interactions with ‘safe’ species, and have done so for over 25 years without a major incident. However, due to the potential negative behavioral reactions of Tiger Sharks, Bull Sharks, Hammerhead Sharks, Lemon Sharks & Mako Sharks, purposeful feeding or interaction with these species without a proper shark cage is highly discouraged.

The Bahamas Dive Association (BDA) would be glad to help communicate industry-standard safe shark interaction practices, should you need any assistance with your procedures.

This letter will be copied to the Bahamas Government, plus all diving insurance and training agencies serving The Islands of The Bahamas.

Signed,

Mr. Neal Watson
President
Bahamas Diving Association

Theater of the Grotesque-A Family Shark Kill?

We're still trying to drill down the "when and where" of this Tiger Shark kill and the images keep getting worse. We had seen some of these but not all. Kudo's to Trules Jemtland for finding this full image suite online. Nice bit of detective work.

If this is the Bahamas-which is likely, these images could still serve a media purpose leading the way for fisheries changes in the Bahamas. These,sadly, are the kind of images that do effect change and garner "sympathy for the devil".

On a personal note, this is a crime, made worse by the fact this was a gravid female. The pile of bloody shark pups is something we hope we never see online again.

Warning:These images are graphic.



TIGER SHARK MARCH 2008

Sharks-Taking a Leadership Position

This morning we read an astonishing post by a shark diving operation in Fiji. As we have come to learn "the hard way" the commercial shark diving world has a similar unsaid credo to that once uttered by Ronald Reagan-"Speak no ill of fellow shark diving operations". Or put less succinctly by those still in the 80's mindset to our industry,"Mind your own goddamn business".

Commercial shark diving has evolved from a few maverick shark divers, who showed the way back in the late 70's, to an actual $200 million dollar global industry. It's a hard fact few within our industry fully comprehend the magnitude of.

Unfortunately, our industry is also at point in time where our actions are inspiring an entire generation of up and coming operators and underwater photographers. In many cases they are being inspired to attempt animal encounters that will inevitably lead to spectacular and unfortunate events.

It has happened already and the perception of sharks when this happens dumps them back into stone age erasing years of positive shark messaging and pro shark efforts. It's a classic Catch 22. The desire by some for closer encounters with top predators to educate the public these animals are not killers, which inevitably leads to an accident or outright attack on a diver, which then destroys the animals reputation once again.

The two burning issues that most commercial shark diving operations fail to realize are the following:

1. Due to the nature of what we do we are high value targets for the media and for misguided wildlife advocates.

2. Regardless of where you have a shark operation your actions ripple through a global industry. This is a fact.

I have to hand it to Beqa Adventure Divers for taking the stance they have taken. We have been strong advocates for industry standard protocols with macro sharks like Tigers, Bulls and Great Whites. On the flip side the imagery taken by Amanda Cotton was stunning and one might argue several of her images will do great things to change peoples perception of sharks.

As we have said in the past there's a "line in the sand" between what we do as commercial shark diving operators with the general public and needs of commercial underwater photography. We covered this same issue last month.

What we do with sharks should be based first and foremost on long term sustainability not a "run of good luck".

Tiger Beach Bahamas 2008 - Fly Fishermen Kill Shark

Sometimes the news we get here is news you never want to hear.

Last week a fly fishermen from the USA seeking a trophy catch deliberately hooked and killed a 15 foot Tiger Shark and brought it back to a marina for a weigh in.

Those on site who witnessed the event say the animal weighed in at 1200 pounds, and when cut open, revealed a few full term pups, one of which was put into the marina and as of last week was still seen "swimming around".

This report was confirmed by speaking with the marina manger "Peter" this morning who also added that "the same vessel was at the marina last year and caught another shark of similar size".

The crew of Shark Diver are distressed to hear of any gravid animals harvested for sport, especially coming from Tiger Beach where fishing for Tigers is like shooting fish in a barrel. We would like to propose legislation for this site to protect these animals in Bahamian waters.

Perhaps it's time for those within our community who have spent the past few months attacking Bahamian dive operations over the recent Shear Water Affair to re-focus on more pressing issues like this one.

It's a big step in leadership, let's see if anyone is up for it?

33 Of The Best Diving Sites In The World

Sent into our News Tip line this morning. The good folks over at the Pro Traveller blog spent many hours compiling a list of top dive sites worldwide that you probably have heard of and some that you might not have.

Here's a quick run down of some of our favorites from this list, all sharky of course:

The Blue Corner Wall, Palau

The Blue Corner Wall: Many divers who have experienced the amazing seascapes at Blue Corner Wall claim that this was their best diving holiday ever. The underwater life here consists of barracudas, sharks, turtles, orcas (killer whales), tuna, and much more. The reef wall consists of 'hooks' which divers can hold onto, and sit-back and gaze in amazement at the schools of fish swimming in the nearby sea current as if it were a super highway.

The Bahamas, Caribbean

The Bahamas: With over 700 islands in The Bahamas, there are plenty of opportunities to dive here. The Travel Channel calls The Bahamas 'one of the best scuba diving sites in North America'. There are a variety of blue holes, 120 miles of barrier reef, lots of shipwrecks, and plenty of wall-diving opportunities for more experienced divers. In The Bahamas, you can expect to come across large sea turtles, rays, dolphins, and a plethora of sharks. Shark dives are very popular here.

Heron Island, Australia

Heron Island: This small coral cay is located just east of Australia at the southern edge of the Great Barrier Reef. This dive site is home to over 1,000 species of fish and 72% of all coral species found on the Great Barrier Reef. The Great Barrier Reef is protected by the government, so it's in good condition. Diving here is like no other place on earth, and you can see whales, sea turtles, sharks, and so much more, definitely one of the best places in the world to explore the deep sea. Many claim that it's a life-changing experience to dive here.

Balancing Media-Bahamas Shark Attack

The media grabbed last months unfortunate shark attack in the Bahamas and chewed on it with a ferocity reserved only for Michael Viks vast Pit Bull Empire. It was, for a time, the shark story that would not go away.

Additionally, anyone during that month with a shark film to flog, pictures to sell, and anti-shark diving websites to promote did the same. The word "Circus" came to mind.

Once again the media is running with this story just in time for the spring dive charter season from the Red Sea to the Caribbean. What makes this story interesting is the reporting balance that is attempted here. This is the first time we have seen a story that even tries to take a look at the nuances involved in this highly charged issue.

The headline's a grabber, but the body has some interesting points both pro and con. It would be nice to see more of this kind of reporting and less of the rest.

In the end it will be up to the Bahamian Government and not the dive operations or even paying divers to decide how much liability they will be willing to accept in the name of cage-less big predator encounters.

Swimming with sharks: is it ever safe?

The death of an Austrian tourist bitten during an organised shark-safari dive off the Bahamas has reignited arguments about the safety of such pursuits.

Markus Groh, a 49-year-old lawyer from Vienna, was one of 10 scuba divers aboard the MV Shear Water, a charter boat operating from West Palm Beach, Florida, which embarked on a shark-safari expedition on February 24.

He was bitten on the left leg by a bull shark and taken by a US Coastguard helicopter to a hospital in Florida, 60 miles away. The Miami-Dade County medical examiner found that he had died from loss of blood.

According to an eyewitness, Groh was diving north of Great Isaac Cay, an uninhabited islet in the Bahamas, where sharks had been lured by plastic crates filled with fish heads and scraps placed near the reef by the Shear Water crew. On these dives large sharks and divers are in close proximity, and the divers do not use a safety cage. The attraction is that photographers get action shots of rarely seen predatory species including tiger sharks, bull sharks and great hammerheads.

Immediately after being bitten, Groh was taken to the surface by a dive guide and given first aid on the dive boat. Air evacuation was carried out within the hour but, in spite of clotting agents being applied to the wound, Groh bled to death.

Jim Abernethy’s Scuba Adventures, which operates the Shear Water vessel, is well known for its shark safaris to the Bahamas from Florida, where shark-feeding was banned in 2001. The Scuba Adventures’ website warns that “shark diving is a potentially dangerous activity”, and that the sharks will be attracted by “chumming the water with fish and fish parts to ensure the best results. Consequently, there will be food in the water at the same time as divers.”

Following the fatality, the Bahamas Diving Association said it had issued a letter discouraging dive operators from open-water diving without a cage with 10 species of potentially dangerous sharks - including tiger sharks, bull sharks and hammerhead sharks. This seems disingenuous given that most of these species have rarely been proven to prey on humans. Cage diving is not the same experience, and is usually only carried out with great white sharks whose behaviour is less predictable.

Shark-feeding is not illegal in the Bahamas and several local dive operators have, for many years, been safely conducting what are commonly known as “shark rodeos”, where dive guides feed sharks. I have taken part in numerous such dives, which are extremely exciting and a valuable opportunity for divers to study sharks at close range with experienced dive leaders.

However, most organised shark dives do not allow ''free chumming’’ where fish parts are scattered from a boat in advance to attract sharks. Some operators use a “chumsickle” a frozen block of fish scraps that thaws slowly underwater allowing very limited amounts of food to be released in front of the sharks. Others distribute bait, which is handled only by a shark wrangler in a protective suit who distributes it intermittently among the sharks a safe distance from the watching divers.

Chumming for sharks has attracted controversy in several parts of the world, including South Africa, where some experts argue that great white sharks are learning to associate the sound of boat engines and shark cages with the presence of food. However, with sharks increasingly endangered, and large specimens of most species becoming rarer, scuba divers are prepared to pay a lot to see them. The British company Divequest charges about £3,000 for a week-long shark expedition on Shear Water. The company aims to “maximise time spent in the water and in front of big sharks, as close as you want...”

American media reports of the attack have questioned the wisdom of divers getting into the water with large sharks, especially bull sharks (Carcharhinus leucas), which are widely regarded as among the most aggressive species. It was a bull shark that bit Erich Ritter, the shark expert, in the Bahamas in 2002, when he was making a documentary about how unlikely sharks were to bite a human.

Nevertheless, most divers would argue that the death of one diver, however sad, is statistically insignificant when set against the number of safe encounters between divers and sharks. The International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida records, on average, fewer than 200 attacks a year worldwide, of which less than five per cent involve divers. By comparison, pet dogs account for almost 1,000 admissions a day to hospitals in the United States alone.

“People should be free to engage in activities that have a perceived risk,” said Simon Rogerson, editor of the British Sub Aqua Club magazine Dive. “If we restrict shark diving, then we would have to argue that deep diving or cave diving should also be forbidden. There are many things that divers do that are more dangerous than diving with big sharks.”

John Bantin, chief correspondent for Diver magazine, is equally reluctant to warn divers off shark encounters. “It’s easy to be wise after an accident,” he said. “Sharks are wild creatures with a degree of unpredictability, just like lions or buffalo. People get killed on safari but we don’t try to ban bushwalking following accidents that occur where professionals are leading tours.”

We continue to find sharks the most fascinating of sea creatures. I, for one, am in awe of them, and will always try to see them underwater. No creature has their grace or pure power and there is an undeniable thrill in meeting one. In their element, they are our superiors - and that is precisely why we are excited to see them.

Thanks to recreational divers, we understand that most sharks choose to avoid humans most of the time. Occasionally, there is a misunderstanding and someone gets bitten - but very rarely preyed upon. Markus Groh was not foolish to be in the water near sharks. With the evidence available, it seems he was just unlucky.

Shark Diver in the News

One of our divers from 2007 got published in the local news. As a shark diving company we never really understand how profound our adventures are to people until we read about from their first hand accounts. Any way you slice it Isla Guadalupe delivers time and time again.

By Steve Hutchings

I saw Jaws when I was 11 years old, after which I was so petrified of the water I wouldn’t go in the bathtub for a year.

This is one of many thoughts swimming through my head as I step off the stern of the MV Islander and onto the top of a cage suspended three metres below the surface of shark-infested waters.

Our dive master, Luke Tipple, hands me my mouthpiece, from which I’ll be breathing surface-supplied air. I insert the mouthpiece and grab my underwater camera. Then, with a deep breath, I slide into the cage below.

There are four of us in the cage, off the coast of Baja, California.

Although I swam with reef sharks in Thailand three years ago, we’re all rookie shark divers in these waters, having endured several months of comments like “shark bait!” from our peers, united by our desire – and each of us having plopped down $3,000 US with San Diego-based Shark Diver – to experience the oft-vilified, yet enigmatic great white shark.

We move around the cage for the first five minutes, searching for any signs of a great white shark. Scores of mackerel cloud our view, attracted to the two tunas that the crew set out to attract the sharks.

Then, amidst the fish below our cage, I see a shark. He’s smaller than I anticipated. About two metres long, he propels himself with slow, side-to-side movements of his tail. I crouch down to watch, mesmerized as he disappears from sight.

Several more sharks appear sporadically over the next 10 minutes, before disappearing for half an hour. We’re beginning to think we’ve seen our last shark on this dive.

Tipple taps the other cage with a metal bar, indicating the end of the hour-long dive. I watch as the divers in the other cage ascend and wait for a new set of four divers to replace them. Nothing.

I climb out of our cage, and when I reach the surface, Tipple, in his Australian accent, says “Steve, mate, do me a favour and go back under. There are sharks all around you and it’s too dangerous to come up.”

I panic, thinking there are too many sharks around the boat for our crew to handle and that the situation has deteriorated to dangerous.

I let go of the ladder and fall back into the cage, dragged down by the 40-pound diving belt, and land on my rear end. I’m still struggling to get off my backside, when a large female shark swims past our cage, two metres in front of us.

The other three divers clamour to get their cameras in position. I’m still trying to get on my feet. That’s when I see another shark, swimming directly toward me. My heart races as his snout gets bigger, and closer.

Just as I’m convinced he’s going to attack our cage, at less than a metre away, he veers to his right and swims past me, and I notice something about him that I’ve never seen in any pictures of a Great white shark before – there is a purple ring around his pupil. We stare at each other, eye to eye, until he’s past our cage and disappears into the background.

I just made eye contact with a Great white shark.

Such was our first dive at Guadalupe Island, off Baja California, about 300 kilometres south of San Diego, on a five-day, live-aboard diving expedition arranged by Shark Diver.

Great Whites congregate off Guadalupe between August and December each year. The sharks seen here are resident sharks.

Much like the resident orcas off Vancouver Island, marine biologists have named about 60 of the estimated 200 sharks that come here.

Chica, Bruce and the ever-popular Shredder are some of the well-known sharks at Guadalupe, the latter being a favourite of many divers for his consistency and his aggressive attitude.

On a subsequent dive he veered towards a male diver in the cage, who retreated backward.

A female diver later recounted that she watched Shredder’s pupil following the male diver as he swam past the cage, seemingly pleased that he intimidated the man.

I guess boys will be boys, no matter what the species.

Steve Hutchings is a Victoria-based Communications professional with a hefty dose of adventure travel in his blood.

Death in the Bahamas-Shark Related?

The shark attack story coming from the Bahamas continues to evolve and as expected the industry has broken into two distinct camps. One look at either the Wet Pixel site or Scuba Board will give you a clear look at how high emotions are surrounding this unfortunate death.

As the hard facts coming from this event have all but ceased, speculation on what caused this divers death have ranged from outright shark attack, to embolism brought about from an uncontrolled ascent.

Even the dive sites location story line has changed from Tiger Beach to a new local somewhat prophetically called "The end of the world".

There are some hard facts that we do know:

1. The Bahamas Dive Association did send a Cease and Desist letter in 2006-7 to all operations in the Bahamas referring to non caged encounters with macro predators. They went as far as specifically identifying the species that might put divers at risk. It was clear and concise. There are some who might argue the legal weight of this C and D, but the fact remains we, as an industry who advertise, book and take divers to this pristine dive site were put on notice.

2. Jimmy Abernathy had no cages on site at the time of this shark attack.

Here's the official letter from the BDA in 2006-7:

Dangerous Shark Species Interaction Warning Letter

To: All Dive Operations Conducting Questionable Dangerous Species Shark Interactions in the Waters of The Islands of The Bahamas

From: Bahamas Diving Association, Official Recognized Diving Association for 36 members of The Islands of The Bahamas

To Whom It May Concern;

We have become aware that some dive operators have chosen to disregard standard safe-diving practices as it relates to interactions with Tiger Sharks and other potentially dangerous species of Sharks, in various locations within the waters of The Islands of The Bahamas.

The Bahamas Diving Association endorses and suggests all dive operators in the legal waters of The Islands of The Bahamas follow GMAC guidelines for conducting potentially dangerous marine-life and human interactions.

In such, we recommend all operations immediately cease and desist conducting open-water non-cage Shark Diving experiences with known species of potentially dangerous Sharks, such as Tiger Sharks, Bull Sharks, Hammerhead Sharks, Lemon Sharks & Mako Sharks.

Species that we have determined safe to interact with outside of a cage are Caribbean Reef Sharks, Black Tip Sharks, Black-Nose Sharks, Nurse Sharks and Silky Sharks.

Many operators in the Bahamas conduct shark diving interactions with ‘safe’ species, and have done so for over 25 years without a major incident. However, due to the potential negative behavioral reactions of Tiger Sharks, Bull Sharks, Hammerhead Sharks, Lemon Sharks & Mako Sharks, purposeful feeding or interaction with these species without a proper shark cage is highly discouraged.

The Bahamas Dive Association (BDA) would be glad to help communicate industry-standard safe shark interaction practices, should you need any assistance with your procedures.

This letter will be copied to the Bahamas Government, plus all diving insurance and training agencies serving The Islands of The Bahamas.

Signed,

Mr. Neal Watson
President
Bahamas Diving Association