White Sharks in Vietnam?

This image is apparently from a recent white shark landing in Vietnam.

The image and posting was discovered by Helmut N over at the Shark-l who has a long and storied history of attributed images and shark events from around the world.

If a shark event happens in some obscure place, Helmut will usually uncover it.

Date: February 4, 2010.
Location: Phu Yen Province, Vietnam.
Species: Carcharodon carcharias.
Size: said to be 5 metres in length ( estimated 1 ton weight )

For more details.

Deep Blues - R.I. Shark Documentary

To all who had forgotten about the venerable Snappa Charters and Captain Charlie, here is a reminder that he's still "Running with the Blues" on the east coast and still thrilling divers almost 12 years later with a recent documentary about his operation. Snappa Charters remains one of the USA's oldest shark diving operations.

Kudos to Scott Tucker for the documentary, as always the Dorsal Fin Blog looked into the media side with a finer comb and brought up some salient points:

Hammers in Love?

Swim at Your Own Risk blog got the scoop from Perth yesterday featuring a video shot from the air of Hammerheads schooling off the coast.

Local experts think this is high seas shark love in action.

We'll let you decide.

Video Here.

NY Times Featuring Industry Member

If there's one thing we like to see it's well balanced and pro industry reporting in the major media.

Too often the industry receives a black eye when operators fail to heed basic media commandments.

As in "Thou shalt not do extreme shark diving media, ever".

It is once again gratifying to see Beqa Adventure Divers in 2010 leading the charge with a well balanced article by Greg Winters.

All the commercial elements are open for review in this article, featuring the pros and cons of the commercial shark diving industry. Coming on the heels of last weeks anti-shark diving media orgy in South Africa - this is fair and balanced reporting.

It could not have come at a better time.

Kudos.

Whale Sharks - The Nigaloo Papers

In depth industry papers on shark tourism are a must read.The Ningaloo Coast region of Western Australia has been a mainstay for sustainable whale shark tourism for the past decade. A new paper is now out.

Tourism Abstract

Whale shark tourism is an icon industry in Western Australia and a prominent example of successful ecotourism. In 2006, whale shark tour participants spent $6.0 million in the Ningaloo Coast region of Western Australia and added between $2.4 million and $4.6 million to the regional economy in direct expenditure. However, to date no research has been conducted on the predictors of whale shark tour participants' expenditure. In this article, we assess the importance of visitor expenditure for ecotourism, assess the predictors of the expenditure of whale shark tour participants and discuss how this information can contribute towards ecotourism goals. The data analysed here were collected through a survey distributed to participants between April and June 2006.

We assess a range of variables for their relationship to individual expenditure per trip and determine that the duration of stay, household income, age, staying in a hotel, trip motivation and being from North America or Southeast Asia positively correlate with individual expenditure per trip. Group size and originating from Germany or the United Kingdom and Ireland negatively correlate with expenditure. In addition to identifying future steps, we also discuss the relevance of our finding that more motivated participants have a higher expenditure for ecotourism.

Link to report.

California Great Whites in Full Swing

Occasionally we drop by the Shark Research Committee's website for a quick update on the state of great whites in California. Looks like it has been another busy month:

Newport Beach — On October 13, 2008 Tom Cupp was surfing near the Newport Beach River Jetties at Newport Beach. It was 5:30 PM with a clear sky and moderate Santa Ana winds. Cupp reported the following: “I was surfing and sitting very close to shore waiting for the next set and a seal swam in front of me, maybe 75 yards out from my location jumping in and out of the water like it was being chased. It was heading North about 100 yards then it tried to get out of the water, but a man was standing on the shore. The seal looked at the man for a minute or two then decided to swim South. I saw the seal’s head surface in front of me three times and again it was about 75 yards beyond me. Trailing the seal by about 50 yards I saw a triangular shaped fin that was 18 inches above water. It submerged after a couple of seconds but I got a good look at the fin and it was a shark. There was also a dead dolphin on shore but it did not appear to have any bite marks on it."

Ocean Beach — On October 13, 2008 Ryan Sincic was surfing at Ocean Beach, San Francisco. It was 11:00 AM and the sky was clear and the ocean calm. He had been on the water about one hour. One marine mammal was observed prior to the encounter. Sincic recounted the following; “While surfing outside the break, about 50-70 meters from shore, I saw a very large black fin with a white base come up above the water level. It moved horizontally along the water for 2-3 seconds and then disappeared. It came very high out of the water as well, higher then dolphins normally do. The fin was probably less then 15 meters from me, so I got a really good look at it including the details of the markings. My first reaction was ‘that was the biggest dolphin I have ever seen,’ my second thought was ‘wait that was way too big to be a dolphin.’ I continued to watch the fin to see if would surface again. It did not. I went online to see videos of dolphins and Great White Sharks to compare, and the size and markings on this fin resembled the inferior side of a pelvic fin of a very large Great White Shark. If I had to estimate the size of the fish I saw I would say definitely more than 10 feet. I swam in toward shore near a group of surfers, one of which also saw the fin as well and said it was very dark and very large.”

Please report any shark sighting, encounter, or attack to the Shark Research Committee.