Bull Sharks Killed in Playa del Carmen? Yup, We Know.

Image: proyectotiburon.blogspot.com

When you start blogging about the global commercial shark diving industry in 2008 you cover a lot of topics ranging from sharks, to conservation, to operations.

And after four years of blogging, 3800 posts, and over 1.5 million blog page views, we're running out of things to write about.

Well, let's qualify that to suggest we're starting to blog about the same issues over, and over, and over.

How many times can you talk about the shark nets in S.A?

Case in point, the ongoing shark slaughter (yes it is a slaughter) in Playa del Carmen, Mexico.

We have been on this one since late 2009 and early 2010. It wasn't just us. Da Shark in Fiji has devoted many pages of good thoughts on the matter. He's the thing, there are good solutions being put forward by seasoned industry individuals in shark blogs and elsewhere.

Every commercial shark site is unique. Each site has its own mix of government regulation, or non regulation, dive site competition, outside pressures and in far too many cases - unwanted shark harvest.

While these mitigating factors may seem insurmountable they are all governed by basic conservation tenants and a plethora of tried and true conservation ideas and in place programs that work.

Getting back to Da Shark, once again he has proposed a number of these good ideas but will they be adopted? Probably not, and if anyone cares to note we're going into the third and fourth year of slaughter in Playa with no end in sight.

Yes, a number of good people have stepped up to help raise awareness and that is a good first start, but like all awareness programs the rubber meets the road when the slaughter ends or at least is curbed.

So for those wondering why we have been unusually quiet on the blog front? It's been covered.

It's up to the global shark diving industry now to innovate past what we have been talking about for many years. Up to individuals to create new tourism and conservation paradigms for sharks. It's not rocket science, it just takes time and energy and some thought. We're at the point now when it comes to shark conservation and commercial shark diving that many regional problems are in fact global problems being prosecuted elsewhere.

We'll stay active on the blog front, but just don't expect us to jump in on seemingly endless problems when real solutions, out of the box ideas, and innovation is as easy to access these days as a click of the mouse.

The commercial shark diving industry was born from the dive industry. It's time for those who dive with sharks to leave behind the stagnation and non innovative culture of diving and create something completely new and vibrant.

We know there are people out there ready to make this move. Make 2013 your year and maybe save some sharks along the way.

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.

Shark Diving's New Beacon on the East Coast?

Where can you find Blue Sharks, Hammerheads, Tigers, the occasional Great White less than 30 miles off the East Coast of the USA?

Welcome to shark diving's new beacon on the ocean. A virgin shark haven yet to be developed and explored to its full potential:



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.

WWF, AlJazeera, and Whale Sharks?

If you want to see some really good conservation reporting - go to AlJazeera this week. 

AlJazeera you say? Yes.

Kudos to Gelareh Darabi and her entire crew for this production.

For the past three years AlJazeera has produced a series of  top notch and in depth looks at our planet and the many conservation issues facing it.

This week the program Earthwise focused on Donsol and commercial whale shark diving there along with actual bots on the ground conservation efforts by the WWF who have made Donsol home for the past decade.

The look at how commercial shark diving helps local communities is a breath of fresh air, and for a global commercial shark diving industry proof positive that the net effects of commercial shark diving are good for local economies, conservation, and ultimnately the animals themselves.

Sustainable tourism trumps extractive fisheries every single time.

"Whale shark hunting hit a peak in the 1990s, with prices of up to $800 per kilogramme of dried fin meat attracting a fresh influx of hunters to Donsol in the Philippines. In 1997, around 200 of the creatures were slaughtered. Whale sightings started to diminish. After campaigning by the local community and conservation groups, whale shark hunting became punishable by Philippine law in 1998. WWF Philippines, the UNDP and the local government together developed a community-based ecotourism and conservation programme, with the aim of providing local people with a sustainable income whilst protecting the species. In a few years Donsol had transformed from a small coastal community into one of the world's most popular destinations for whale shark tourism."

Watch video here.

About Shark Diver. As a global leader in commercial shark diving, film television productions, 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.

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.

Australian Commercial Shark Permits - Good News?

"We lost our shark permits!"

JUST two shark cage diving operators will be able to operate off the Neptune Islands for five days a week.

The four existing licence holders will learn in just over a month if they will lose their licence or if they can continue operating the world-famous tourist attraction.

The licence cuts will come after the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said the changes were brought about after consultation with the industry and a recent study by the CSIRO that found shark behaviour was changing at Neptune Islands.

Shark dive operators will find out at the end of March if they are able to keep their licences, but the new policy means two local operators will lose their licence to conduct dives within the Neptune Islands Conservation Park.

Adventure Bay Charters owner Matt Waller said the cuts to local shark cage licence holders were an unfortunate decision for both the industry and the region.

"We will apply (for a licence) the same as anyone else," he said.

"We have a good case for our inclusion in the industry in the future and we should know the decision at the end of March, or that is their date at the moment."

The new policy claims it will ensure the sustainability of the popular tourist attraction by minimising impacts on reserve values, improving industry certainty and reducing red tape.

But, it will also change the time shark cage dive operators will be allowed to conduct dives at Neptune Islands.

No more than five designated days each week will be allocated to tourism activity under the new policy.

There will be further restrictions placed on the two operators who receive licences, with no more than one vessel per licence being able to conduct shark diving within the Neptune Islands Conservation Park at any point in time.

By Kimberlee Meier

Very Cool Shark Diving Video!

The question of why people go shark diving has answers that, if typed out and put end to end, would undoubtedly circle the earth many times.

For Shark Diver Chris Johnson his answer and very special video surprised even us:

Shark Diving Industry Thank You to Tourism Minister Gail Gago!

Tourism Minister Gail Gago's new shark plane, this is how you do it folks!

Mention commercial shark diving and we'll show you years of media turmoil surrounding any particular site on the planet.

Except for Fiji.

Most of the media discontent is based on one simple fact.

Regional politicians and tourism officials are usually too timid to stand behind our industry.

In some places politicians even callously use our industry as a wedge issue, calling in and stoking what amounts to media air strikes on operations that have exhibited nothing but 100% operational excellence. Believe it, it happens.

But thankfully we have Australia this week to show the way. 

Tourism Minister Gail Gago has unveiled a new, rare, and forward thinking partnership with regional shark diving operators and airlines to bring more tourists to where the sharks are in the form of a white shark cage diving airplane:

"Ninety nine percent of tourism is marketing, is selling a message. We know that people fatigue to messages very quickly, so the trick is to try to keep creating novel and clever, and new and innovative ways to get your message across", says Minister Gago.

We could not have said it better, and Kudos to Minister Gail Gago from an entire global industry this week.

A Room Full of Naked Emperors - Epic Rant

The wise industry sage sez, "good stuff"

We have been blogging about our industry, conservation, the heroes, the idiots and just about everything you might want to read in the shark world for the past three years.

It's been an amazing run with a readership that tops 25k a month celebrating over a million unique pageviews last month.

That's right, one million people stopped by to read what we had to say, agree with it, or become angry and emailed over to their particular clan grouping for dissection. These brilliant posts were then ripped apart with a creative and sometimes unusual assortment of interesting international put downs. South Africa currently holds champion status for, "ways to say things about your mother."

It's all good.

But nothing we have written to date comes close to an Epic Rant by David Diley this week who distilled conservation facts and efforts to re-brand sharks by some down to the basics.

If you do not possess the following abilities, do not read this expose:

1. The ability to detect nuance

2. The ability to understand multisyllabic wording

3. The ability to detect dark and intuitive humor

For the rest of you, the majority, our fan base, enjoy.

David hit a home run this week, and good on him for swinging for the fences.

Terry Howson Hates White Sharks - Australia

Terry would like to see inshore white sharks destroyed. Image Perth Now

It's tough if you own a dolphin watching company these days.

Used to be back in the 80's and 90's that dolphins were all the rage, and an operation could make a lot of money interacting with our perennially smiling ambassadors of the oceans.

Then along came a few early pioneers who sought commercial encounters with white sharks. At first these few were considered "crazy", out there, not mainstream.

Crazy has a way of catching on and slowly over the past 30 years crazy became mainstream, refining techniques, adding conservation and research, and growing.

Today, "crazy" is a thriving multimillion dollar global industry called shark diving and the pioneers like Rodney Fox in Australia are now under siege from a variety of sources including this guy, Terry Howson, who runs one of the aforementioned dolphin watching companies and who now is calling for a return to killing white sharks in inshore waters...to keep the public safe.

"We suggest the Department of Fisheries treat sightings of great whites close to shore or aggressively approaching boats in inshore waters as an opportunity to dispatch that individual shark and prevent the risk of future attack."

Of course Terry has absolutely no proof that commercial shark operations are responsible for inshore white shark sightings:

"Common sense suggests that these cage diving operations are unwittingly conditioning great white sharks to associate boats and people with food. I may be wrong, but until proven otherwise I would prefer that we err on the side of caution and follow existing legislation regarding other native wildlife which makes it illegal to feed them."

But that does not stop the Terry's of the world from demanding justice and blaming our industry for wildlife encounters miles away from operations sites. We have seen "The Terry's" from Hawaii to South Africa banging the same media drum, making the same arguments, as if they are all reading from the same script written on the back of a pizza box that still has the cold remains of last nights cheese toppings on it.

Australia's Gold Coast 2009

These are not savvy arguments for killing sharks and shutting down commercial shark diving operations. They lack data, they lack intelligence, and killing big charismatic sharks because they have arrived to a place where we have deemed them unworthy to be is flat out wrong.

It is unfortunate that many ocean agendas come to play when commercial shark diving becomes established in any given region. It is doubly unfortunate that those who hate sharks will use our industry as the reason to kill these magnificent animals.

Blame the industry for conditioning them, then kill them because it makes $ense.

Maybe if you own a dolphin watching company.

Private Yacht Shark Diving Services - Shark Diver

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Shark Diver offers all inclusive shark diving and support services for mega yachts worldwide, specializing at Isla Guadalupe, the South Pacific, and the Bahamas.

Our yacht services are geared towards adventure diving and pristine shark encounters.

Based in California and Florida, we are ideally positioned to comprehensively support luxury mega yachts who desire to engage in safe shark diving and specialized dive charters with additional destinations available.

Shark Diver was the first commercial shark diving company to offer mega yacht services in 2004 with a private cage system build out on the M/Y Triton and shark diving services to Alaska with Salmon Sharks (Lamna ditropis). Our dive crews and support vessels maintain the highest safety and proven track record for animal encounters and we remain the premier shark and adventure diving and cage build service provider.

At Isla Guadalupe your white shark experience is our highest priority. Changes in vessel permitting at this remarkable site have made these experiences more challenging for yachts, we can help you with the process.

Shark Diver commercial shark diving yacht services are comprehensive with an eye towards value and safety.

Dive Management Services Worldwide

• Shark cage fabrication, sales, and service
• Full line dive equipment gear, sales and service
• Hyperbaric sales and training
• High pressure, air, nitrox, mixed gas sales and service
• Custom dive lockers
• Dive training, management services, open water through trimix rebreather
• Submersible sales, service, and training
• New build construction and refit

Yacht Dive Management Services

• Voyage planning
• Dive site pre-planning and expedition development
• Hiring and coordination of all local agents
• Screening and selection of local guides and dive crews
• Land based tour arrangement
• Local comprehensive security coordination

Port Services

• Cruising permits
• Customs and Immigration Visas
• Bunkering Marine Fuel
• Yacht Supplies
• Vessel Support Technical support
• Logistics Freight forwarding

Michael Reiser and Blue Sharks - Great Video

Michael Reiser is a new and upcoming underwater videographer who has been spending some time free diving with Blue sharks off Rhode Island this year with Joe Romeiro.

The results speak for themselves and this is as good as it gets:

Isla Guadalupe White Shark Cage Diving 2011

With just a few weeks until our 2011 white shark season at Isla Guadalupe celebrating a decade of successful operations on site we're pulling some old and not so old trip reports written by our divers so you can start getting excited.

T-minus 18 days and counting:

Guadalupe Island - Diving With Great White Sharks 2010

When Drew Grgich called us many months ago to book a shark diving adventure we knew we had a budding Shark Diver on the line.

His enthusiasm for sharks you could "feel" all the way from Arizona.

He was also a non certified diver, one of the many we "train" to become Shark Divers each and every season.

Today Drew can call himself an Official Shark Diver having encountered the top shark species at the best site for them on the entire planet.

Day One (and a half)

We came from all over - - Michigan, New Jersey, Nebraska, the Bay Area, Vancouver, Maryland, and Arizona - - and all of us had one goal in mind … swimming with Great Whites. Mind you, none of us had death wishes so our goal was to do this swimming carefully ensconced in a steel cage. Nonetheless, we would be in the water with them and thus, they would be in the water with us! Our journey began in San Diego out of H&M Landing. Our vessel was the MW Horizon, an 88-ft. dive boat.

We boarded at about 10:30pm and were underway just after midnight. The first night was spent in fitful sleep while trying to detect whether or not the queasy feeling in our stomachs was the beginning of seasickness or just nerves. We arrived in Ensenada the next morning at around 9am. A quick check with Mexican customs officials sent us on our way to Isla Guadalupe, the fall home of some 100+ Great White sharks. The trip was uneventful if long - - 18 hours long to be exact. We were told that the ride was among the smoothest our captain had experienced. A few of us succumbed to seasickness but for the most part, all was well. We saw some remarkable sights - a blue whale, a thin whale, pods of fast moving and high jumping dolphins.

What I remember most about that day is how excited I was.

Few people in life are blessed with the sure knowledge of knowing exactly what they want most in life and even fewer get to experience that desire. For me, my most fervent wish was going to happen in a matter of hours. That's pretty heady stuff!

Day Two

At around 3am, the engine shut off when we arrived at our destination. I went up top a couple of hours later and was not surprised to see other early risers. We attempted to wrestle our cameras into taking decent photos - - not an easy feat at 5am before the sun had even made a token appearance - - and imagined that the murky waters surrounding us were teeming with sharks, each hungry for the first shift of divers.

The shift happened to include me!

Our divemaster, Martin Graf, took me into the cage and had me try a regulator for the first time. I did okay with the regulator but before Martin would declare me dive-worthy, I had to flood my mask and clear it through my nose. I gave it a good effort but sadly, I panicked when my first attempt resulted in a nose full of salt water. I shot to the surface and for a brief moment, wondered if I was going to be able to succeed. Martin was extremely patient and knew exactly how much space to give me in to get over my fears. My second attempt was successful. The secret was to get a steady rhythm breathing through my mouth to gain confidence, close my eyes, and exhale through my nose while tipping the mask.

We didn't have to wait long. The first Great White appeared within a few minutes, circling the cage a few feet below us in its graceful way. That shark was followed by another shortly behind. Both sharks hovered below and made lazy trips around the cages and all too soon, our first hour's rotation was over. All of us were fortunate on this trip. Two people had to cancel so this meant we had 10 divers instead of 12. The cages fit four people each. This meant that we could effectively have as much dive time as we wanted.

I took an extra shift that first day so I had five hours in the cages. We saw seven different sharks the first day. Most kept a respectable distance from the cage but some ventured close enough to touch if we were really inclined to do so. No one was. :) We knew that they were different sharks as the patterns of markings around their gills and fins serve as a sort of fingerprint. These sharks are in turn named by the people who first see them. Scientists do this so that they can identify populations and measure data points such as the number of years that they have been coming to the island, how much the sharks are growing, and how many sharks are seasonal residents.

Some come every year while some visit more irregularly. For the record, the sharks we saw on Day One were Jacques, Bite Face, the Russian, Johnny, Cris Cross, and a new unnamed male. We don't know who gets to name that shark . . . the suspense is delicious. :) The highlight of Day One -- aside from the fact that I was diving with Great Whites! -- was a rotation where Jacques circled the cage for the entire hour. I was able to shoot forty minutes of video going from one side of the cage to the other. Some passes were within inches of my video camera - - I got some great shots!

Day Three

The next morning, I took the first rotation of the day along with two other brave souls. We saw some sharks but they were far below. We tried a variety of tricks to attract the shark's attention - - stomping our feet, hitting the cage ladder with some of our lead weights, singing show tunes - - but nothing enticed the sharks closer that first shift.

Following shifts were much more productive. I spent the first three hours of the day in the cages and shot more video. I grabbed another three shifts after lunch for a total of six hours in the cages. There were two highlights on day two. The first was that I happened to be looking in the exact direction necessary to witness a full breach. This is when the shark completely propels itself out of the water while in pursuit of prey. The prey happened to be a seagull and it got out of the way just in time to escape the leaping shark. I was one of two people onboard who saw the breach and it was truly a magnificent sight.

It was a smaller shark - - maybe 6-8 feet - - but it was a full breach!! The second highlight was more ignominious. We saw a new shark -- Gunther -- who was kind enough to - - - well, poop - - - directly in front of the cage next to us. It was amusing to see and pleased the 10-year old children inside my cage mate and I . . . until the current pulled us directly into it. I can thus say that I was blessed enough to be pooped on by a Great White.

Day Four

I only took half of the sharkwatch shift. It was okay - - nothing really when compared to the first couple of days. I took two more shifts for the day before we had to leave. We did get a great couple of close passes by Bite Face and Jacques. This was especially memorable for me as Bite Face was a featured shark on Expedition Great White, a show about scientists tagging Great Whites at Isla Guadalupe. It was fun to see the satellite tags that they had attached to Bite Face to track him. It is also cool to know that if they show his progress in a future show, one of the lines will cross where I saw him. :)

We left for home following the morning drives and have a rough patch of choppy water to look forward to. I'm writing this as we make our slow way north across the Pacific. I can honestly say that there are four events in my life that top my list. The first would be my wedding with really, a tied two and three being the births of my kids. Close behind would be this trip. I was a little worried that I'd be petrified of going into the water with the sharks but I didn't have even a lick of fear. The sharks are obviously curious about we monkey folks in the cage - why would they stick around if they weren't?

They certainly did not make any attempts to harm us and I didn't hesitate to hang my arms out of the cage to hold my camera for a better picture. That said, I wasn't stupid - - - no dangling legs over the side of the cage, for example.

Final Tally on how many hours I dove - - 15.5 hours!

My favorite Martin Graf quote - Sharks are like babies. There are only two types of items to a shark -- things that fit in their mouth and things that might.

Fan of the Shark PSA Joe Romeiro and Mike Reiser

We have been watching the media career of Joe Romeiro for the past few years and along with most of the shark community were amazed at his video Nina Salerosa.

That particular video short was bar setting stuff.

As it turns out Joe is doing Blue sharks (Prionace glauca) on the east coast, our own blues here off California have been virtually wiped out in less than a decade of rampant fishing pressure.

Along with him this month was new shark shooter Michael Reiser, who produced this short shark PSA while managing to impart the grace and beauty of the Blue shark, nicely done:

White Sharks and AC/DC? Best Practices Garbage

A recent article has popped up in the mainstream media about some industry folks in Australia who claim that blasting AC/DC underwater attracts white sharks, oh, and the white sharks "love it."

Naturally we have to call bull-shit on this one.

Folks, as long as we have been in the shark game, going on for over a decade now, we have seen every kind of shark attraction device known to man - and a few that defy description.

Blasting AC/DC underwater is not new, it is not innovative, and dare we say it is a complete and utter disservice to the animals that we make a living with.

It's the kind of best practices garbage that you just do not see with terrestrial animal tourism.

Where are the megawatt speakers blasting the sound track from Zanadu in the Gombe National Forest? We're pretty sure that someone without a PhD, and who's vested interest in the wild animals that inhabit this park could come up with some half-assed observation about chimpanzees "rocking out" to techno funk from the 1970's.

The fact is, folks like us make a living "with" wild animals, not "from" wild animals and that's a distinction that many within the shark industry have forgotten, or have conveniently decided to ignore as they chase sharks around the world.

Worse yet some within our community are now throwing up a thin excuse for bad behavior with sharks as calling it "conservation", which is the next iteration of the AC/DC and white shark argument.

Last week we saw a video featuring a woman, dressed as a mermaid, free diving in 500 feet of water with white sharks at Isla Guadalupe, no cages, no dive safety team, all under the mystical caption of "conservation".

What's starts with basic disrespect for wildlife, leads to all manner of lunacy with sharks under many guises.

The final observation?

White sharks have been around for the past 300 million years in perfect balance with nature and none of that nature included mermaids, simians riding on fins, or AC/DC.

Are we fortunate enough to spend time in the presence of white sharks, or do we have to completely and abjectly modify the shark encounter to suit our tastes as top water interlopers, surviving in their environment in what amounts to crudely designed life support gear?

Shark Diving - Guarding a Global Industry

Unfortunately there are those who would use our global $400 million dollar industry for their own ends.

Some are well known shark experts based in Florida, whose Pavlovian response to cameras pushed into their face is to spout anti-shark diving rhetoric ad nauseam - without any empirical data to back them up.

Others are media based hatchet men, who use fear, industry images and soundtracks to boost ratings, trolling the basest of human emotions to slander operations without providing balance, nuance, and research (yes research) to highlight our industry.

Against these seasonal onslaughts of Shakespearean intrigue towards a thriving global industry stand a few blogs who take to task the failings of these few well voiced and misguided individuals, and we ask that you take a stand as well.

Collectively we have the horsepower to push back against those who might seek to harm our industry. The media consistently calls upon a few outside our community for quotes about shark diving because no one else has stood up to be heard.

In a media vacuum the small minded will always work from the nearest "shark contact rolodex" and it is high time we changed that, as the current rolodex is filled with misinformation, slander, and moronic statements.

It is also high time we started pushing back when we see stories like those that appeared out from the primordial ooze last week in Australia. Fashioned by a 1970's era media hack by the name of Anthony Hoy Media who's entire "shark diving research department" came from a dog eared copy of Jaws he found in a rubbish bin at the back of a bar he had been frequenting last month.

Fortunately there's Mike aka Da Shark, or as we like to call him "The Shark Diving Industries Rottweiler," who is more than happy to lead by example and take to task those who would seek to use the hard work and dedication of many within our industry for their own sad ends.

Well done.

Mike on Anthony Hoy's Expose.

Shark fin ban Guam - Shark feeding ban as well?

One of the hopes for regional shark fin bans and set aside shark sanctuaries is that commercial shark diving development will be allowed to re-purpose local fishermen from unsustainable fisheries into sustainable commercial shark diving.

The shark tourism numbers are eloquent, in places like the Maldives sharks are worth $6.00 to local fishermen, where a live shark at a tourism site might be worth $30,000 over the lifetime of the site, and that's just one shark.

In the Bahamas a $78 million dollar shark tourism industry safely introduces thousands of divers to the world of sharks each and every year.

So, reading the recent discussions on the senate floor about a proposed shark fin ban in Guam yesterday is a bit dis concerning as it would appear that at least two Senators are seeking a complete ban on shark chumming as well.

A complete ban on shark chumming would preclude the second act for regional shark conservation efforts allowing fishermen to capitalise on a growing international shark tourism marketplace.

Guam News:

During floor discussions, Sen. Respicio proposed an amendment that would also prohibit the practice of shark feeding, which has been used to lure the animals.

Cruz said he supported the amendment.

"The intent of this bill was to allow nature to be nature," said Cruz.

He said that bringing sharks closer to shore was "unnatural" and dangerous.

Sen. Chris Duenas also rose in support of the amendment.

"It is the experience of many fishermen as they go fishing is that there are a lot of sharks," said Duenas. "But there's no question that when you add fish parts to the water … you would artificial attract sharks to a location, fishermen have a hard enough time off there fending off sharks."

Sen. Judith Guthertz called the practice of attracting the animals through fish parts "very dangerous." She said the bill wanted to prevent dangerous commercial activities that would attract the animals to cages.

"It's inappropriate and unfair to the animals," she said.

Sen. Ben Pangelinan said the practice throws the ecosystem off balance.

"You can train a dog to wear a skirt and sit up and bark. Or pants for that matter," said Pangelinan.

He said that the practice has meant that sharks have been conditioned to follow the sounds of boats -- because the animals know that the sound may mean food.

Read story.

Hand Feeding Whale Sharks? Seriously?

Got the following image sent to us this week.

It would appear that this is a diver hand feeding a Whale shark (Rhincodon typus), or maybe not as we always assumed to hand feed a Whale shark you would need a pair of tweezers (see diet).

Upon further investigation this might actually be a Whale shark being hand fed "something" as this image was shot in Okinawa, Japan at the site of two (didn't it used to be three?) penned and beat up looking sharks.

The additional images we found show what appear to be net damage from rubbing to the eyes and maxillofacial areas on both animals.

See blog post from 2007.

Fiji Study - Fiji Template

We have said in the past and for the sake of saying it again, kudos!

Fiji's Beqa Adventure Divers have once again shown the rest of the commercial shark world how to sustainably manage their sharks with ongoing research.

While other sharks sites worldwide such as Playa del Carmen struggle with commercial shark fishing interests, because they did not take the time to roll out an embedded and highly visible research component with their diving programs, Fiji has created a global template - and they are willing to share it.

That's not to say all's lost elsewhere, but the fact remains that too few sites hedge against commercial disasters and embrace ongoing shark research. It works, and we are bound by more than commercial gain to adopt the time and funding necessary to make it happen at our own shark sites.

This morning Da Shark revealed his teams ongoing Bull shark project:

Seasonal and Long-Term Changes in Relative Abundance of Bull Sharks from a Tourist Shark Feeding Site in Fiji

Juerg M. Brunnschweiler, Harald Baensch

ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, Department of Biology, University of Nebraska at Kearney, Kearney, Nebraska, United States of America

Shark tourism has become increasingly popular, but remains controversial because of major concerns originating from the need of tour operators to use bait or chum to reliably attract sharks. We used direct underwater sampling to document changes in bull shark Carcharhinus leucas relative abundance at the Shark Reef Marine Reserve, a shark feeding site in Fiji, and the reproductive cycle of the species in Fijian waters. Between 2003 and 2009, the total number of C. leucas counted on each day ranged from 0 to 40. Whereas the number of C. leucas counted at the feeding site increased over the years, shark numbers decreased over the course of a calendar year with fewest animals counted in November. Externally visible reproductive status information indicates that the species' seasonal departure from the feeding site may be related to reproductive activity.

Complete study here.

Tiger Sharks in the Bahamas Could Get Big Break

By ALISON LOWE

Image Wolfgang Leander

alowe@tribunemedia.net

A ban on commercial shark fishing would help protect the $78 million that shark dive-related tourism is estimated to bring to the Bahamas annually, the industry's potential growth and the predator's role in the sustainability of other commercial fisheries in this nation, a leading expert said yesterday.

Working with the Cousteau Society, Pierre-Yves Cousteau, son of legendary French explorer and marine scientist, Jacques Cousteau, is in Nassau this week to support the Bahamas National Trust (BNT) and the Pew Environmental Group's (PEG) campaign to get the Government to enact legislation banning commercial fishing of sharks in the Bahamas.

As shark populations globally have come under threat from over-fishing, primarily driven by the demand in Asia for shark fins for soup, a long-line fishing ban in the 1990s and lack of local demand helped the Bahamas remain one of the few countries with an abundant population of sharks.

However, the advice to the Bahamian government and people from Mr Cousteau, the BNT and the Pew Environmental Group is that the Bahamas should take a proactive stance towards specifically protecting this resource through legislation banning the commercial fishing of sharks, which have both environmental and economic importance to this nation and the wider marine environment.

With any depletion of sharks in the Bahamas, said Mr Cousteau, the multi-million dollar shark diving industry in this country - estimated by the Bahamas Dive Association to have brought in $800 million to the Bahamian economy over the last 20 years - could be threatened, as could the health of other commercial fish populations whose abundance to some extent is "regulated" by the existence of the "apex predator" in Bahamian waters.

At risk, too, would be the exposure that the Bahamas gains from footage of its sharks and marine environment being featured in television programs and films worldwide, which can stimulate not only dive tourism but tourism generally. Meanwhile, Mr Cousteau - who went for his first dive as a child in Eleuthera, where he also saw his first shark - noted that shark tourism could be a growth industry for the country if protected.

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Shark-Safe Beaches: testing aerial spotters and dismissing electro-magnetics

Starting 2011 out right with this report from RTSea Productions.

If you want concise industry thought and analysis this is your go to daily blog.

From RTSea:

When people enter the ocean - to swim, surf, dive, or just frolic about at the water's edge - they are entering a different wilderness. In doing so, they expose themselves to a measure of risk from interaction with other animals, from a sea jelly sting or an urchin spine all the way up to an interaction with a larger animal like a shark.

To protect people from unwanted shark interactions, several methods of prevention have been tried over the decades. In Australia, there is an extensive network of netted beaches. The steel mesh nets are designed with openings small enough to ward off large sharks but large enough to allow smaller fish to pass through. The nets have been used for many years and, in combination with lifeguards acting as shark spotters, the process has been fairly successful. But not infallible.

Sharks can get through the nets on occasion due to the nets being moved about from currents or storm action, so to maintain a big picture overview, spotter planes are being deployed in New South Wales (south eastern Australia) as part of a test program during peak months of swimming activity. And the NSW government in Australia has deployed a novel method to keep their spotter pilots' skill sharp. Decoy or replica sharks will be placed in the water to check the effectiveness of the surveillance program. Lifeguards will be made aware of the days and times for the placement of the replica sharks, but not the pilots. Results of the tests will be included in the final evaluation as to the aerial surveillance program future.

Far to the west, following a recent series of shark attacks in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, a variety of safety measures are being considered. Nothing has been confirmed as yet because the government is weighing an appropriate response that also recognizes the probable causes for the attacks - reportedly everything from unregulated chumming to overfishing of the shark's usual preying to the dumping of dead sheep from a passing freighter.

One approach that apparently will not be used is something akin to electrified fencing. An organization, the Shark Academy, has proposed installing an electro-magnetic shield along the Egyptian coastline of Sharm El-Sheikh in the Red Sea, but the idea has been totally dismissed by the Governor of South Sinai, General Abdel Fadeel Sousha.

"He (the company's owner) showed us a video in a meeting in Sharm El-Sheikh on devices used to protect beaches from sharks and made verbal and purely theoretical proposals that didn't persuade me on a personal level," said General Sousha. "I asked him for a practical demonstration in front of a committee of experts so we could be sure the devices work effectively. This still hasn't happened."

A pretty far-fetched notion when you think about it. I have worked with divers who have used a protective device called a Shark Shield which emits a strong electro-magnetic pulse when needed and seems to be quite effective with medium-size sharks like lemon or blacktip sharks. But I've been told it also "rattles the teeth" of the diver when its discharged. So the idea of having something that strong running constantly across a beach seems rather unlikely.

Apparently, previous attempts at using electro-magnetic fields along beaches in Natal, South Africa and in Australia have been a dismal failure, not preventing the sharks from entering enclosed swimming areas but giving bathers a nice little shock instead.

Rather than rely on Rube Goldberg devices, common sense should prevail. Non-life threatening measures - such as nets and shark spotters - along with a better understanding and acceptance of the wild world we are venturing into is what's called for. While many of us hear the call to return to the sea, we must remember that we enter it as interlopers and strangers on someone else's turf.