The Shark Empire Strikes Back?

The global shark diving industry has become a juggernaut for shark conservation efforts and best practices for animal tourism world wide.

It's been a quiet revolution that has happened over the past decade and one that has been lead by some of our industries best and brightest.

Sadly, not everyone has received this memo and that's a failure of our industry to push back in a consistent and coherent manner when politicos, the media, and a few traditional agenda based voices (hacks mostly) speak up to regurgitate opinions taken from dog eared copies of the book Jaws.

If there was a Bible for misinformed media hounds who spend 98% of their time sitting behind desks at home waiting patiently for their creme colored wall mounted kitchen phones to ring - Jaws is it.

Thanks to the industries shark blogs there is a small amount of push back and it is usually to the point, on target, and dare we say what's needed if our industry is to continue to grow, thrive, and become all that it can be in the years to come.

Case in point this latest from Fiji and who else, Da Shark, who has penned one of the best responses to the recent shark strike media firestorm in Western Australia. Kudos sir.

What's at stake is a growing call for a complete reversal of shark protections for great whites in the region and a "limited cull" of these magnificent animals in response to five shark strikes and particularly gruesome death.

To date this call for sharks heads on sticks in the region has been met with resounding white noise from shark groups, shark divers, and commercial shark interests worldwide while the politicos in the region are having a media field day.

We have to push back, and it is posts like this one from Fiji that serve as a template for the rest of a global industry to become engaged.

Owning a commercial shark diving company or even working with one on even a part time basis makes you part of an elite fraternity. You are responsible for the future of the industry on a local, regional, national and global level.

What happens in one part of the world for good or bad to our industry is often carbon copied and exported to other regions, hence the push back and it does not get much better than this.

Oh, and in case you're on of those who think that blogs are nonsense and that no one reads them, think again. Words and ideas are powerful things, and like individual web pages blog posts sit on the Internet for eons marinating, proposing ideas, and justifying position that those in the media search for when the subject of sharks come up.

Food for thought.

More blog information and outrage here.


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.

Barry Bruce on Shark Culls - Video

Berry Bruce deep inside his subject matter 2009

Barry Bruce, never heard of him?

Well you should as he's one of those quiet industry types who does great work with white sharks, shuns the limelight, and occasionally comes forth in the media to knock a few homers out of the park.

In short our kind of white shark biologist.

This week Barry jumped into the political morass of recent shark attacks in Australia with the latest happening at Rottnest Island.

A world on Rottnest if you please. It's no secret that white sharks inhabit this island in the months of Oct-Dec and later each and every year. White sharks have been known in these waters going back to the late 1800's.

We posted this video back in 2008 of whites at Rottnest.

So, we're asking why dive boat operators are dumping divers into white waters in the first place? It's a question that NO ONE has asked and should be asking instead of baiting long lines to kill animals that are just "doing their thing."

Anyway back to Barry, his latest media foray  has been picked up by the shark blogs, namely The Dorsal Fin and Da Shark and Andrew Fox and we would like to add our voices to the collective as well. This is great stuff and it's unfortunate that we don't have another three or four dozen Barry's out there to help turn the political tide back from the "kill order" for protected white sharks to a broader understanding that perhaps, just perhaps, during certain months we should just leave the hell alone and not put non caged divers into the world of the white shark.