Two escape as great white shark tears apart cage

We spend a lot of time on this blog talking about the 200 million dollar shark diving industry and how the actions of local operations ripple across the globe to eventually effect us all.

For the second day in a row a major newspaper in the U.K has acquired a You Tube video shot by a diver at Isla Guadalupe in 2007.

The video details one of the worst cage breaches ever caught in the history of cage diving.

The operation in question has had several cage breaches going back to 2004 at the same dive site with the same sharks.

By way of disclosure we also operate at the same site and before anyone proffers the idea this post about "slamming a competitor" we would like to put that to rest-now.

This post is about media, responsibility, and leadership within an industry. It is about our responsibility to the animals we make a living from, it is about treating the resource as a renewable one and not as a Biological ATM Machine.

This video, for the anti shark diving lobby, who would like to see an end to shark diving in places like South Africa, Australia, the Bahamas, remains the perfect visual media tool. It is the Golden Key.

For example this video is one of the primary reason the Mexican Navy enacted a ban on chumming at Isla Guadalupe in 2008. This ban affected an entire fleet of operators and shark divers from all over the planet. All due to a video and the complete lack of any media control exercised by a commercial shark diving company.

The abject irresponsibility of allowing this video to remain on the Internet where it continues to portray great whites in a 70's mindset, continues to harm other operations at this dive site, and continues to provide a platform for those who want to end shark diving-cannot be understated.

Leadership within an industry begins with the sharks and it ends with the realization that everything we do on a local level will eventually affect those on the other side of the planet either positively or negatively. The next steps are up the the company responsible for this event.

It is high time they took full responsibility for this sad affair and "retired" this video for the sake of the industry and for the ongoing perception of sharks worldwide. These animals deserve better, you know it, the industry knows it, and no amount of post event website spin will change that.

Sharks and Media 101

This mornings Times Online highlights the ongoing need for both control of media within a shark site and safety protocols with macro sharks. Back in 2007 this company had another full cage breach at Isla Guadalupe. This time the shark took off the entire front of the cage system dumping a fully weighted diver into 500 feet of water.

At the time the event was written off and to this day the operation publicly looks at this event as "par for the course" when dealing with Great Whites. Meanwhile the video of the cage breach continues to grow on You Tube (500,000) garnering interest far and wide from not just the media, but government agencies in Mexico tasked with this sites enforcement, members of the Mexican Parliament, and a few NGO's whose agenda is clearly anti shark diving.

The lessons here are simple and two fold. Design and adhere to safer protocols for macro species encounters that do not rely on cage systems for "entertainment". Having white sharks bump, ram, or hit shark cages is both a disservice to the animals and inherently dangerous. Always control your media. When events like these happen there is a small window in which the operator may ask for the video or images. Videos such as these damage the credibility of all shark diving operations worldwide.

As an industry we live in a world where negative operations events (NOE's) are transmitted at light speed around the planet. These events will also sit on servers until the end of time reinforcing the image of sharks as deadly killers and no amount of post event spin will change that. As an industry whose livelihood depends on these animals, we can do better. Let's start by taking this video down and replacing it with a pro shark PSA, while at the same time ensuring these kind of events never happen again. The Times Online readership is 349,000 a day.

Editors Note: We just noticed the Sun also ran with the same story with a "Divers survive shark attack" headline. Good for sharks? Probably not.

Salmon Futures $40/Lb? You Betcha!

Well, it has come to pass. The once magnificent salmon runs from San Francisco to Oregon are now officially gone. With a one year "temporary ban" in place...and who are we kidding here, fishermen and a 500 million dollar industry have been wiped out overnight.

The same old war horses who got us into this mess are now trying to fix it. The solution is 500 million for fish replanting and habitat reconstruction, 10 years of good will, and a few prayers of forgiveness to the almighty.

SEATTLE — Failure. Disaster. Devastation.

Those words can describe the utter loss of commercial and sport ocean Chinook seasons in 2008 in most of Oregon and California. But through all of the gloom, Oregon emerged from the historic closure with a small victory: a 9,000-fish coho quota for sport fishermen.

The historic closures due to low returns to much of the West Coast rivers, primarily the Sacramento, was marked only by a lot of angst, a few simple votes, a quiet audience and much regret as the Pacific Fishery Management Council met in Seattle to decide the fate of not just sport and commercial fishermen, but also several coastal ports and towns for years to come.

India's Cage Diving Industry DOA

India, the planets fastest growing population and economy has reached a crises point with rampant, unregulated shark finning off it's shores.

As reported by the Daily Star "At least 50 shark processing centres have sprung up along the South Western Coast, employing over 2000 fishermen".

Once again sharks are being harvested for the ballooning fin market and the home cure market which more often than not is driven by hear-say and bogus science. Anyone remember the anti-cancer shark pill craze of the 80's-90's?

We are officially declaring India's cage diving industry DOA. If the global shark slaughter is not halted soon, by 2040 even finding sharks in any ocean will be a rare event. The only way to stop this slaughter is to show local populations another use for these magnificent animals and eco-tourism, so far, seems to be a leading contender.

Japan: Whale Slaughter 2008

With the eco-wolves of both Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd out of the Southern Ocean, Japan has begun its "Scientific" whale slaughter in earnest this week.

"Exhausted and disoriented after a ruthless pursuit from high speed chaser ships, the whales caught on film this week were then shot with pointed harpoons, packed with explosives, to cause maximum damage".

Without any anti-whaling groups in the area to keep Japans fleet on the run-images like these featuring a mother Minke and her calf will continue to surface.

As an eco minded shark diving company we would like to point out that these whales are being harvested as premium food source. It's just plain wrong anyway you slice it.