Pet the shark?

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Scubaroo

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Having a hard time finding out more information, but this picture was taken on a Queensland dive boat in the last few weeks - the crew baited a shark and brought it on board for the passengers to pet. I'm sure they found it entertaining, but am I the only one who thinks this is wrong?
 
I've been known to pet fish occasionally, but they have always been in the water where they could get away. But, that is just wrong, cruel to the shark and pointless. If you want to pet a fish you should have to do it on their terms in their environment.
 
scuberd once bubbled...
If you want to pet a fish you should have to do it on their terms in their environment.

But who says the fish wants to be pet?
 
Stupid Human Tricks category...people are so removed from the natural world they have to relegate wildlife to the petting zoo level...

Surprised they didn't fin it while they had the chance...
 
That's not a shark... That's a guppy. :D

Pppplease... If you can bring it on the boat, then it ain't really a shark. :D

Okay, I'm just kidding. :) Halfway, anyway. It's just a baby!

No offense, but how do you know that they'd brought this shark on board just to pet? Were you there? It just looks to me like this guy's fishing, that's all.

Of course, that said, I think fishing is cruel. :D

Loooook at the preeeettttyyyyy waaaterrrr... Mmmmmm...
 
SeaJay once bubbled...
No offense, but how do you know that they'd brought this shark on board just to pet? Were you there? It just looks to me like this guy's fishing, that's all.
Because I know who took the photo? It was a 3 day liveaboard DIVE boat out of Cairns, and the boatcrew chummed the sharks using fish pieces for divers who were in the water, and they brought this one on board for a closer look.

Hardly an environmentally sound practice.
 
Scubaroo once bubbled...
Because I know who took the photo? It was a 3 day liveaboard DIVE boat out of Cairns, and the boatcrew chummed the sharks using fish pieces for divers who were in the water, and they brought this one on board for a closer look.

Hardly an environmentally sound practice.

Okay, agreed. Sorry... Just checkin' the reference. You know how things can get misconstrued on the 'net. :D

Yeah, that's not cool.

Last I looked, annually, there's about 7 people attacked every year by sharks (with an even rarer fatality). Yet millions of sharks are killed by humans annually; many of which are caught, definned, and then released, only to be dined opon (to death) by their peers.

Interestingly, shark attacks happen even MORE rarely to divers. Almost always, it's a surfer or a swimmer. We just don't look, smell, or act like food. Of those divers who are attacked, it's almost always a provoked attack.

Check the online shark attack files. They support this. I believe that in the past decade, there's been only a handful of divers attacked by sharks, and you could count on one hand how many were fatalities. If my memory serves, it was something like two in the past decade... Both of which were fatalities caused by bleeding and improper treatment, not from being eaten.

I've dived with sharks... When I was a volunteer diver at the SC Aquarium. I was more in danger of being bitten by the puffer fish and by the loggerhead turtle (both of which could remove either a finger or limb with ease) than by the sharks. Comparably, I was much more in danger driving my car to the Aquarium than I was in the tanks. And no, they were not "domesticated" sharks.

Yeah, I could go on and on about the cruelty... So I'm with you on this one. But I'm not shocked... I live on the water, and every day I see fishermen go out and catch fish. I believe it MUCH more cruel to catch and kill than catch, pet, and release.

Of course, all of it's hard to justify.

Perhaps if we put these people in scuba gear and showed them the glory of these beasts in their own environment... Perhaps then we could drive home the cruelty of man. Perhaps then we could make a difference.
 
Arnaud once bubbled...


But who says the fish wants to be pet?

if I can catch it with my bare (gloved if it's cold) hands then it is my reward. So far as I know there is no permanent damage,
please tell me if there is!!!
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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