Tiger Shark - Jupiter, FL 03/23/2014

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I reason just fine.....and you don't listen. MANY posters on SB have come on and said they have experienced radically different behaviors from the sharks in Jupiter. Are you telling me you have not read any of these posts? Or, are you telling me you don't believe these posters ?

I don't need proof beyond what a few dozen divers have told me, along with all the posts on SB.... I suppose you want to say that each of these divers was fibbing when they said that the sharks were coming in far more aggressively than anything they ever saw before? ..The scary thing is, how can you and Doug ignore the divers that claim they see changes? How can you justify calling them liars? How can you ignore the concerns of these divers ?

How is there no "reasoning" with me?

I totally agree with you Dan. I am a member of the group that has clearly seen changes in shark behavior in our waters here. A couple of weeks ago, some of the divers I was with were taking pictures of a great little Bull shark (this was not a feeding charter op!). I was about 25 feet away from them just watching. At one point, he seemed to tire of his celebrity photo shoot. He turned and ran straight at me bumping me as he passed by. I have never seen that kind of behavior without spearfishing. That was just one instance of the many over the last year or so.
 
I know I've seen posters on here try and direct inexperienced divers to the Emerald for shark dives, but I do not agree with that. I've got twelve years and ~450 dives under my belt, with about a fifth of those on Palm Beach County drift dives and quite a few diving solo out in white shark country, and I consider shark diving off the Emerald to be near the edge of my comfort level. In my opinion, one should not get on that boat unless they know what they're in for and accept that. I do it because quite frankly I've gotten to a point in my life where I want to get out and do the things I've wanted to since I was a kid. One of the incidental reasons I moved back to South Florida almost two years ago is that the things I want to see while diving are here, where I can go after them on any given weekend. I don't need to sink a few months' salary and a week of PTO for a one-shot trip to Tiger Beach or Bimini or Hawai'i or Cocos Island or Australia; I've got plenty of shark species to see on any given weekend, varying with the seasons, and once in a while some truly rare bucket list item like a whale shark or a great white will come through.


This all day.

I do not recommend the Emerald to my friends (or any of our 10,000 followers on instagram, except the pros who traveled here to do dives with the emerald.) who want to see all the shark action, I know they are not qualified, I send them somewhere else like Scuba Works, JDC, or Capt Sl8r.

I dive with Randy on the weekends because you never know what we might see ( Leather back, whale shark, great white, mako ) It's just a matter of time until we have one of those encounters, I'd like to think. My most memorable ocean encounters have been aboard the emerald, that is probably why I keep coming back. I want to interact with sharks, I want them in my face, all around me, call me crazy, but sharks are my thing. I've dove with Tony and Doug with Calypso Charters as well, I dive mainly with the purpose to see sharks.

And yes Dan, you are not reasonable. Doug couldn't reason with you either. Your friend JA can feed sharks and do whatever he does because its in the bahamas and he's an expert and he does it safely.. blah blah blah it's basically your way or the highway, seems pretty hypocritical. After learning some interesting circumstances surrounding yourself, I don't think I'll be believing much you say.


Back to the topic we were discussing about shark feeding dives making sharks aggressive towards other divers, not on shark feeding dives. I asked Eli Martinez to point me in a direction of some of his own personal experiences. Eli Martinez runs Shark Diver Magazine ( Shark Diver magazine - Everything you wanted to learn about swimming with sharks ), and he probably feeds more sharks all over the world, than anyone else. Here's something he said regarding the topic - https://medium.com/p/c83cf3f62f83
 
This all day.

And yes Dan, you are not reasonable. Doug couldn't reason with you either. Your friend JA can feed sharks and do whatever he does because its in the bahamas and he's an expert and he does it safely.. blah blah blah

If you look at the other other thread, you will see there is a research paper now introduced into the equation, and I am hoping several more will be added to the discussion.
At this point, as you would see from the other discussion, the Spearfishing behavior from over 40 years has done "little to nothing" in alteration of shark behavior, because it was not shark feeding--but it was similar to baiting, in that it would bring sharks in, and for the spearfisherman that were able to completely kill the speared fish and eliminate all vibrations and struggling, the encounters would not be particularly aggressive....more like baiting...

When the fish on the spear were struggling, a classic feeding frenzy would often result, and this is far beyond the behaviors Jordan would create with his shark feeds, so I am NOT trying to compare this extreme.

The bottom line is that today we are in a discussion about humans doing something that the scientific community knows will cause changes in shark behavior....Studies have already been done, clearly there will be many more.

Everything I have read and seen so far on dives I have done, indicates to me that the baiting without feeding is much like smart spearfishing....and not likely to have much behavioral effect on sharks beyond what 40 plus years of spearfishing had done. Which is why I am not against the JASA style of shark interaction. And I am not against spearfishing.

The research I have read on ethology indicates the feeding will become a problem, and the one paper we have referenced now in the other thread indicates this as well. In all fairness to Randy, the study referenced is a feeding pattern far more exaggerated than what Randy has created---though when you look at the mechanisms for pecking orders and frustration, and for learned behaviors...it may be that Randy can feed on a much smaller level than was discussed in the article on French Polynesia shark feeds--and still end up frustrating low pecking order sharks enough times over weeks and months, for them to adopt aggressive solution behaviors.

As to you guys not being able to reason with me..... after re-reading the whole thread, my belief is that this discussion needs to move forward with the Science direction....which is where my posting will be directed, and this should mean Randy and you should not feel that I am being unfair--or unreasonable.

It is a big issue ...and the past discussion has succeeded in getting this issue to a top of mind awareness in a lot of divers....and in getting members of both sides of this to see both sides and think about each ( which would probably NOT have happened otherwise).

Now it needs a smart course of action for us to proceed with. Beyond the science angle, I can't think of any others...Can you?

And....I still want to do a meeting in an afternoon this weekend.
 
I read this pdf....mostly significant in that they are asking for more study on --- why there are different feeding responses between species..and also more study on the various cascades within trophic levels associated with the sharks in these ecotourism areas..... And of course, how can you not agree with them on this.
One of the interesting tangents is their suggestion that the population of Bahamas sharks, when compared to the separate population of SE Florida sharks, may just be the same sharks, but with the Florida sharks being more juvenile( smaller)....larger sharks ranging further than smaller sharks...
 
https://xf2.scubaboard.com/community/forums/cave-diving.45/

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