Shark bites liveaboard guest

[DanLVolker]

Another aspect that should be considered...Abernethy's chumsicle concept is very similar to how a natural feeding event would occur---for instance, a whale dies of natural causes, this precipitating a feeding event for large number of sharks, as well as many other large fish in the area....If you could jump in on this natural feeding event, you would be seen as incidental to the sharks, like the groupers and other large fish that show up to eat.
The sharks are there for the whale, not for the groupers or the scuba divers. This is why this is very different than hand feeding sharks, or cage based diving where a chain mail suited diver is feeding the sharks. Given the great distances sharks can travel, hand fed behavior "could" have come from one of the dive operation feeds from a company that is now condemning Abernethy----not to mention, it has been widely publicized that Abernethy has been "the top operation" to go for the best film or video footage...not Neal Watson or anyone like him.

Of course, I am now involving myself in ridiculous speculations--however, anyone who goes shark diving does so, knowing that sharks can be dangerous.

We don't need rules about this practice, any more than we need to outlaw Steaming Hot coffee at Burger King or Starbucks, because some people may not be aware how dangerous hot coffee can be---that they need to be "protected"...

 

[sporket]

This is very sad & sucks on so many levels. I think this will change the industry tremendously. Maybe it needs to be. I understand that we "might" be changing their habits along with associating humans with food. Its possible that occurrences like this may become more common. Maybe not. We all understand the risk we take. I doubt anyone was at fault here either. At the same time everyone in the diving community is deeply saddened for the loss and sincere condolences goes out to his family and friends. I myself? I would do the dive tomorrow if I could.

 

[bobmaggi]

I jut love when people who have:

1) Never spent any real time in the actual water with sharks close up

2) Don't know the record including # of dives, safety procedures, experience with diving operations, etc. of an operator

3) Speculate without any facts

and then weigh in on sharks and divers.

I personally have chartered JASA (Jim Abernethy's Scuba Adventures) 7+ times with most for Shark Expeditions. He is a lot safer than many if not most of those "kneel here and we'll feed the sharks for you!" type dives. As stated, bait is in the water in crates, but not fed to the animals. Those people who think they'll get to see or photograph these beautiful animals without keeping them around this way are deluded........

The "cameras taken away" is more a stunt than regular occurance. Never happened to me or any of my fellow photographers in hundreds of dives and hours.

The State of FLA has it's proverbial head up it's you know what, too. They ban any dive operation from bait yet allow MILLIONS of bathers every year to enter murky splash filled water next to like, 75 fishing piers? Dumping guts and blood into them right next to Johnny and Susy splashing around.......How retarded.

Jimmy has a flying boat (Zodiac with a wing) he flew for maybe 30+ miles above several major beaches and videotaped hundreds of sharks outside the surfline on a typical day. That coupled with science behind how many humans enter the ocean every day, especially in FLA or CA and how few sharks even nip a person were discounted by FLA "officials". Because politicians have to reassure the public "all is well!" solving any perceived problem with a lame solution.

Sorry for the rant, but I'd like to Google how many dog, cat, ferret, snake, or people bites etc. resulted in hospital visits on 2/24/08. Or how many sharks necessary for the complete environmental balance were finned or hooked and killed on the same day. The sharks sure should fear us more than we fear them.

Let's wait for real information.....

dhaas

P.S. - I see this has ended sadly. I do, of course, feel sympathy for the man and his family. But again, facts need to be known........

we have also been on Jimmy's trip--his Shark Expedition, in July of '06. This was before he started using his flying boat on the trips. We would do it again in a heartbeat, and hope to do it again before we retire, if we can afford it. (the prices have rapidly increased since them) We did the main shark dives at Tiger Beach, and at one time had 5 tigers and 15+ lemons in the water at the same time, in the 15-20' of water there, spending 1.5-2 hours on the bottom at a time. At no time did we ever feel unsafe, and we learned to respect the tigers, and sharks, in general. They had very high safety standards. Now that was a year and a half ago, and no mention was ever made of bull sharks, but that isn't known, is it? But we have great respect for Jimmy's operation and sharks as well.

Many condolences to the man and his family. Maggi

 

[dashark]

I think that feeding large dangerous sharks and habituating them to the presence of divers is fine because very few people get attacked and it is very exciting and people will realize just how wonderful these fish are. I also think that rubbing the bellies of manatees is totally inapporpriate, dangerous and completely alters their natural behavoir. :mooner:

Agreed. However, some people (myself incuded) might argue that sharks being wild animals alter their behaviors when exposed to new (and easily accessable) food sources. When those food sources come from humans, it is not a natural source. Therfore, unpredictable behavior in relation to humans is more likely.
I have never felt threatened while underwater with sharks. Nor do i ever want to be.

My heart goes out to the family of the victim as well as everyone involved.

 

[matt215]

I'm supposed to dive tiger beach in 2 weeks!! Holy crap! what to do. I've done several shark dives, but this really has my attention. are these sharks getting more aggressive? are people now on the menu? this is bad on so many levels. what a tragedy. I just hope people don't respond by going out and killing a bunch of sharks and laying them out on the docks for a photo. yeah it's a risk any time you do this, and you're not visiting a petting zoo.

 

[scubadale]

...Abernethy's chumsicle concept is very similar to how a natural feeding event would occur---for instance, a whale dies of natural causes, this precipitating a feeding event for large number of sharks, as well as many other large fish in the area.....

Where is it that Abernethy uses the chumsicle concept. What I see on his web site is that he is chumming with fish and fish parts. To me this would imply dumping buckets of fish and fish parts out of the boat. A chumsicle would be a frozen assorted of fish/fish parts.

The chumsicle would - as you stated - more closely resemble a natural occurrence as the source of food is localized to the body (chumsicle). Chumming would be spreading food over a larger area and thus making the entire area part of the feeding target.

I HAVE not dived with Mr. Abernethy so I can not speak from first hand experience. Maybe someone could give more detail of the "chumming" that Mr. Abernethy uses.

 

[cappyjon431]

I'm supposed to dive tiger beach in 2 weeks!! Holy crap! what to do. I've done several shark dives, but this really has my attention. are these sharks getting more aggressive? are people now on the menu? this is bad on so many levels. what a tragedy. I just hope people don't respond by going out and killing a bunch of sharks and laying them out on the docks for a photo. yeah it's a risk any time you do this, and you're not visiting a petting zoo.

This is one of the reasons that I insisted that we stop doing chumsickle feeds on our Southern Bahamas itinerary many years ago.

We had a lot of success drawing in sharks (mostly Caribbean reef but occasionally others like Greater HHs and bulls) to an area off of Conception Island. This was a marine park that was supposed to have been protected from fishermen. Every week we would get at least a dozen sharks in for the dive. Then, sadly, one week they were all gone. Not one shark showed up. After making some inquiries in George Town (Exuma), I was horrified to learn that a fishing boat had come in and cleaned out all the sharks from our site.

The lesson to be learned is that while feeding sharks for divers may increase appreciation for these beautiful critters, it is not good for the sharks. Drawing them in to one central location week after week can lead to their slaughter by those looking to make a quick buck. This circumvents one of the major reasons for doing shark dives in the first place. If we can't protect the sharks from fishermen 24/7, we have no business drawing them to one central place. It becomes almost like shooting fish in a barrel. This was a sad lesson I learned the hard way.

 

[bobmaggi]

Where is it that Abernethy uses the chumsicle concept. What I see on his web site is that he is chumming with fish and fish parts. To me this would imply dumping buckets of fish and fish parts out of the boat. A chumsicle would be a frozen assorted of fish/fish parts.

The chumsicle would - as you stated - more closely resemble a natural occurrence as the source of food is localized to the body (chumsicle). Chumming would be spreading food over a larger area and thus making the entire area part of the feeding target.

I HAVE not dived with Mr. Abernethy so I can not speak from first hand experience. Maybe someone could give more detail of the "chumming" that Mr. Abernethy uses.

Assuming they haven't changed the way they 'chum' from when we did our shark trip...

There are normally 2-3 milk crates (with tie-wrapped lids) full of dead fish parts positioned at the stern of the boat so that the crates are mostly out of the water but waves will go over them. These are normally left out overnight so in the morning we would normally see a dozen or so lemon sharks circling the boat. The tigers were either under the boat or tended to swim up to the boat and then head out of sight.

You jump into the water with no air in your BC and head to the bottom immediately. All divers would have a 4 foot PVC pole that was used to plant in the sand in front of you when a shark got overly curious. We positioned ourselves in a 'V' with the closed end near the stern and the open end pointing whichever direction the current/scent trail was.

One of the boat crew would take a closed crate of fish parts into the 'V' and shake this which tended to bring the sharks in closer to investigate. There is little fish blood so the sharks don't go into a frenzy. We were told to alway face the tigers and the lemons could pretty much be ignored - when you were down there with them you immediately knew the tigers were the bosses. They tended to be curious and would check us out but my wife and I never felt ourselves to be in any danger.

We only had one time that the sharks started to get more aggressive and the bait boxes were removed from the water until they calmed back down (didn't take long for that).

So that is the way 'chuming' was/is done on this trip, nothing like what you see on TV.... Its more of a scent trail to get them curious but not excited. I would say it has worked pretty well up to now. We didn't have any bull sharks on our trip, just reef sharks, lemons and tigers. Plenty of excitement and very much worth the money for the trip. We hope to do it again if we can ever afford it, but I don't know what this will do to Jimmy's business.

Bob

 

[cmdiver]

Matt
The incident was not at Tiger Beach, it was at Great Issac, that is what the Austrian news reported. Still watch yourself if you head to Tiger Beach, and make sure to insure your camera!! Many have been taken from photographers at the site....in fact, maybe you should take two that way you'd have a back up. Watch yourself and GOOD LUCK...

 

[matt215]

yeah it's insured. so am i. : ) . is the reported location close to tiger beach, or just some random reef? I have never been to either of these locations, but from what i have herd and read, bull sharks at tiger beach are quite rare. and i read that on the internet so it must be true.