Proposed interactive shark diving in the Caymans

[KathyV]

I hope that it isn't approved:
Shark diving: Should Cayman take the bait? :: Cayman Compass

 

[scubadada]

Somehow, I find it particularly disturbing that Steve Broadbent, of Ocean Frontiers, is in favor of ressurrecting shark feeding on the East End. This is a particularly controversial topic where I live in SE FL

 

[Doctorfish]

I am not a fan of organized shark feeding dives for a number of reasons. Cayman Islands does not need this sort of BS.

 

[vincent54]

Terrible idea. However, it will take the attention away from the Pier dredge and the Turtle farm. The Moray feeding at Stingray didn't work, so why would Shark feeding be any different? Cheers

 

[tkaelin]

As a long time visitor and diver in GC, this would repel not attract me to future visits and diving on the island. This would be a negative for me with future stays and diving with OF which I have been a big fan of. Don't won't to start a whole debate here, but I not a big fan of the stingray city attraction. Feeding/shark diving to me is the same - an artificial unnatural underwater experience. If you feel the need to see sharks feeding in this type of environment, go to the Bahamas. TK.

 

[billinwilliamston]

Somehow, I find it particularly disturbing that Steve Broadbent, of Ocean Frontiers, is in favor of ressurrecting shark feeding on the East End. This is a particularly controversial topic where I live in SE FL

It's not a surprise. OF is one of the, if not the, operator that caused the ban to be enacted in the first place. They used to do shark feedings 15 or 20 years ago. As I recall, there was a rise in aggressive shark behavior toward divers during that same time period. No bites that I remember, but nothing will scare a discover scuba person away from ever diving again fster than having a shark fly up out of nowhere looking for a hand out.

 

[scubadada]

It's not a surprise. OF is one of the, if not the, operator that caused the ban to be enacted in the first place. They used to do shark feedings 15 or 20 years ago. As I recall, there was a rise in aggressive shark behavior toward divers during that same time period. No bites that I remember, but nothing will scare a discover scuba person away from ever diving again fster than having a shark fly up out of nowhere looking for a hand out.

The article KathyV posted states Steve Broadbelt and Ocean Frontiers ran shark feeding dives until they were banned in 2002. Sounds like he is strongly in favor of restarting this activity with "regulations". It seems like financial motivation is major, with all the money Cayman is losing to the Bahamas. Personally, I don't buy the shark awareness rationale.

Ocean Frontiers is currently my favorite operation in the Caribbean, it could just as easily be off my list. I'm sure some will disagree. The shark feeds in SE FL have some rabid fans and defenders (some photographers just love them). If I want to see sharks in the wild I'll return to T&C and dive off West Caicos and French Cay.

 

[KathyV]

During one of our earlier trips to Nassau many years ago we did a shark-feeding dive. We hadn't planned to do a shark dive but we were under a great deal of pressure from the dive op - and we got the strong impression that they would not take us to the best sites until we agreed to pay for a shark dive. (That turned out to be true!) It was a memorable experience but not one that I would want to repeat; and I don't care for the concept of teaching sharks to associate divers with food! Human interaction has already had a major impact on the reefs and sea creatures. I am not in favor of shark dives in the Caymans!

 

[HalcyonDaze]

The article KathyV posted states Steve Broadbelt and Ocean Frontiers ran shark feeding dives until they were banned in 2002. Sounds like he is strongly in favor of restarting this activity with "regulations". It seems like financial motivation is major, with all the money Cayman is losing to the Bahamas. Personally, I don't buy the shark awareness rationale.

Ocean Frontiers is currently my favorite operation in the Caribbean, it could just as easily be off my list. I'm sure some will disagree. The shark feeds in SE FL have some rabid fans and defenders (some photographers just love them). If I want to see sharks in the wild I'll return to T&C and dive off West Caicos and French Cay.

I wouldn't call myself quite rabid - maybe just a bit of frothing?

My patronage of the Jupiter shark-diving ops aside, I would have some concerns about starting up feeding ops in the Caymans. Further details about how it would be done might allay or reinforce those concerns.

In general the South Florida shark-diving ops are a bit different than what you see around the Caribbean. The Jupiter-area shark dives that started up a few years back grew out of spearfishing, not tourism. Emerald and Miss Jackie were primarily spearfishing charter boats; when the word got out that they were seeing a lot of sharks while shooting fish other divers started signing on just to see the sharks. Eventually the operators just cut straight to baiting or directly feeding the sharks. Since then Jim Abernethy has started doing shark dives in the area again and Florida Shark Diving has been doing snorkel/freedive trips; those ops are tourism-based from the get-go. The jury is still out on what effect feeding/baiting has had on their behavior - one of the things I've been doing is to try and ID individual sharks in order to track any changes.

Here in FL the rule is that feeds are illegal inside the 3-nautical mile state waters limit. As a result, the charters doing feeds are out in 90+ feet of water and in drift dive conditions, which has some side effects besides keeping a few miles between the feedings and the beach/shallows.

• With the exception of the snorkel/freedive operator, there's an "experience gate" to get on these trips. Emerald I know requires AOW and nitrox at least. Also, given that Jupiter really isn't a tourist dive destination - the word's getting out, but most of our dive vacationers file down to the Keys - the dive operators are more dependent on repeat business from locals. Most days I get on the Emerald half or more of the divers are folks who are on the boat at least a few times a year; some are on multiple times a week. That means that generally speaking the folks down there can be trusted to look after themselves more, rather than being told to hunker on the bottom and trust the divemaster to fend off anyone who gets too nosy.
• Another side effect of being out in deeper water is that we don't typically deal with inshore species like Caribbean reef sharks, which are what most shark encounter dives in the Caribbean target. On the one hand, reefies don't have the size and dentition of a tiger or bull; on the other hand they can be high-strung and unlike their bigger cousins they don't seem to migrate with the seasons. Our tigers, hammerheads, lemons, bulls, duskies, silkies, sandbars, and blacktips move around during the year and spend significant amounts of time away from our feeding sites. This might limit the chance of them getting too accustomed to the buffet offerings.

What species are typically spotted around Grand Cayman? That's kind of a prerequisite for shark diving ops; you need sharks and you need them hanging around somewhere where the smell of bait is going to draw them in a reasonable amount of time. The big question I have is the scale; if they're pumping cruise ship goobers into these dives at Stingray City levels I'm not liking the idea.

 

[Doctorfish]

The sharks I see most commonly are nurse and an occasional gray reef.
Have seen a hammerhead twice in 20 years there.

On LC a few years back, the DMs used to feed the speared lionfish to reef sharks just to the west of the park. The shark frequency in that area increased, and IMO, they seemed to get a bit too friendly for comfort. (The sharks, not the DMs.)


I don't think a lot of the cruise ship people would go to a shark dive on the far end of the island as it would involve a long drive and take up the whole day as well as being a dive rather than just wading as at stingray city. The better business model would be closer to Georgetown. On Roatan, anyone with a C card can go on the shark dive. It's not far from the cruise ship dock and gets a fair number of day trippers. I went once just to see what it was all about and felt like I was at Disneyland, not in the open ocean. The sharks, groupers and a moray at the site were all aggressive. Would not repeat.

No matter how shark diving would be set up on GC, bad idea. Nothing good can come of it except for a few extra bucks for the operators.

Knowing how the ecology is viewed on GC, Turtle Farm, Dolphin Experience etc. undoubtedly the government will allow shark diving if proposed by a friend or relative of the party in power. Maybe I'm being too cynical, but my prediction is that it will be approved and go on until a tourist gets bitten badly.